The air is thin where Congress roosts

By Dick Tunison

It must be hard to serve in congress these days. The air is so thin up there; it’s surprising members aren’t wearing oxygen masks to keep themselves breathing. We commoners watch as our representatives bitterly complain about preserving their sacrocanctity as they do their best to ignore the misdoings of some of their fellow members.

This week, the big stew has been over invasive action by FBI agents to find and secure potential evidence in a long-going investigation of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA). The FBI did its dastardly deed on a Saturday while congressmen were away dillying or dallying – whichever they do on their days off. Jefferson is accused of taking bribe money from Brett Pfeffer and Vernon L Jackson in connection with their interests in a Louisville-based technology company doing business in Nigeria. Both these men have pleaded guilty to bribing the congressman. The bribes may be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range and intended to buy the congressman’s influence. Last summer investigators found $90,000 in a freezer at Jefferson’s home. The money was carefully wrapped in aluminum foil. That way, no one could accuse Jefferson of hoarding hot dough.

Before you think I’m making light of the matter, let me say I’m only exposing what I see as an ironic twist. Jefferson is an eighth-term representative of Louisiana’s 2nd District. He is a member of the Ways and Means Committee, the African Trade and investment Caucus, and the Congressional caucus on Brazil and Nigeria. So it’s not hard to see that enterprising lobbyists would look upon the man as having some stroke when it comes to Nigerian affairs. Yet congressional leaders are worrying more about the privacy of one of their members and the loftiness of the Rayburn Office building than about any crime that may have been committed. After all, the guy is vying for position among former congressional sleaze like Dan Rostenkowski, Randy Cunningham and too many others to name.

It’s also been alleged that Jefferson corralled the National Guard to help him remove personal items from his home near New Orleans five days after Katrina. This has been viewed as an abuse of power and a diversion of the National Guard from its official duties in a time of national disaster. Perhaps this may not stack up as a big deal in the total scheme of things, but it’s certainly an indication of the man’s judgment and sense of priorities.

What’s sticking in the craw of congressional leaders is the invasion by one of the other arms of the government in the House’s inner sanctum. Leaders Hastert and Pelosi are standing shoulder to shoulder in their outrage. They have both predicted a Constitutional showdown. They see a great separation of powers issue here. Rep John Boehner, the House majority leader has said, “I have to believe at the end of the day it is going to end up across the street (the Supreme Court).

But here’s the twist. Nancy Pelosi has asked Congressman Jefferson to step down from his seat on the Ways and Means Committee. Jefferson’s response has been, in the vernacular, “Nuts to you!” That’s the same kind of answer Jefferson has given the Justice Department this past year to its subpoena for access to Jefferson’s files and documents. It’s called non-cooperation. Justice wanted to be sure the files hadn’t been torched, so it acted peremptorily. When former President Nixon tried to thwart the Justice Department thirty years ago the Supremes told him to go pound sand. I would expect the same will happen again if this matter ever gets to “the other side of the street.”

Since calling for the step-down, Minority Leader Pelosi has found herself in deep goop with an outraged Congressional Black Caucus. The CBC had planned to blast Rep Pelosi with, reportedly, a scathing rebuke, but an emergency meeting with her apparently dissuaded the Caucus and the idea was dropped. But the CBC members were not mollified. According to The Hill, a non-partisan, non-ideological weekly newspaper, the staffer to one of the Caucus members said the group’s anger has become quite hot. The staffer asserted that “Pelosi, without any legal justification, has now created a new precedent for how members are going to be treated. Unfortunately, she’s chosen to single out an African-American for this honor.” But that wasn’t all. The staffer went on to say, “The African-American Community, which overwhelmingly backs the Democratic Party, will not take this lightly.”

So now, the race card has been tossed on the table. But it doesn’t seem to hold water, because it’s the truculence of Rep. Jefferson that’s so hard to understand. He’s making it especially difficult for Democrats to press the Republicans for wrongdoing like they want to when he refuses to head on to the sunset. After all, Republican senators and congressmen have stepped down from their posts for much more benign infractions. Names like Gingrich, Livingstone, Lott and Delay quickly come to mind.

In the final analysis, I can’t help but wonder what congress expected the Justice Department to do under the circumstances if not to break into Jefferson’s office and take the files. After all, it sought and received a search warrant from a District Judge. What if a murder had been committed in Jefferson’ office? Would congressional leaders have demanded the matter be run by a couple of committees before the FBI was allowed to peek behind closed doors?

From my perspective, this is silliness. Jefferson has been under serious investigation for a year. Ninety thousand dollars in cold, hard cash was found in the man’s freezer - bills whose serial numbers matched the sting money given to Jefferson by the undercover agent. He has been accused of wire fraud and misuse of government services. I hope congress gags on this one. They’ve tended to let Rep Cynthia McKinney off the hook which was another example of uppity misuse of official power. It’s time to pull the plug on self-pride and become real leaders and statesmen. Oh, dreamer, I.