Romper Room in DC

What the hell is going on in Washington this week?


As you may remember, a Congressman Jefferson (D-LA) is currently under investigation for bribery. He’s the guy who had some $90k in his freezer. He’s been under investigation for over a year. Last week, Justice, in conjunction with the FBI, obtained a warrant to search Jefferson’s DC office. They did an extensive (18 hour) search and took some documents.

Suddenly (literally within a few hours), House Republicans exploded. The charge was led by none other than Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL). He immediately demanded that the White House order Justice and the FBI to return the documents to Mr Jefferson. Meanwhile, according to the Post, there was talk amongst the Republican rank and file to order Mr Gonzales’ (head of Justice) resignation. They had a committee meeting in which, some speculate, they were going to fire back at the White House (said one senior administration official: “If you tell the House to stick it where the sun don’t shine… They could zero out funding, they could say, ‘Okay, you can do subpoenas, so can we.’”) Mr Hastert, standing alongside none other than Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was demanding that the documents be given over to the House Ethics Committee instead.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Mr Gonzales, along with Paul J. McNulty (deputy attorney general) and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III threatened to resign should the president return the documents. That’s right: the head of the FBI, the head of the Justice Department, and one of the seconds-in-command at Justice all threatened to resign should Mr Bush bow to his House GOP buddies and obstruct a criminal investigation.

Mr Bush, in his infinite wisdom, stalled. He put a 45 day seal on the documents. Presumably the idea behind this is to give everyone some time to cool off.

Not to be left out, the issue will now be discussed by the Supreme Court.

(By the way, this is the short version. You wouldn’t believe the amount of lightning-quick wrangling that went on at all levels involving all manner of individuals in DC this week. Threats were thrown around like mad. For example, an anonymous person at Justice told an ABC News reporter that there was enough evidence to investigate Hastert regarding the Abramoff affair. Hastert attacked Justice immediately, all but stating outright that this was a retaliation from Justice against him. Meanwhile, he ordered ABC to issue a retraction; when the reporter refused on the grounds that his sources were sound, Hastert sent his legal team after the president of ABC. They’re gearing up to file a slander and libel suit.)

Now, you may all be wondering what all the fuss is about. When I read the article, that’s certainly what I thought. Most importantly, why in the world is Mr Hastert unleashing his entire political onslaught against the Mr Bush (et al) in order to defend a Democratic Congressman? Further, by all accounts Jefferson is an idiot and guilty as a fox with feathers in his mouth.

True, this could have nothing to do with Jefferson. This could be about the separation of powers. At least, that’s what Ms Pelosi and Mr Hastert claimed: the executive (through its proxies) was trampling on the Constitution by invading legislative offices. Never mind that judiciary seemed to be assisting the executive in this endeavor by ganging up against the legislative (i.e., they issued the search warrant). Thus, Mr Hastert, and the GOP as a whole, were infuriated by the executive’s overreaching their Constitutional authority. After all, no sitting member of Congress has had his or her office searched in the history of the nation.

How now? House REPUBLICANS are interested in Mr Bush’s extension of his presidential powers? They are now calling on him to curb his reach? Because Justice and the FBI were doing their job? In order to go after a political opponent? Since when are House GOP members Constitutional scholars?

(Incidentally, Mr Hastert wrote a brief op-ed in USA Today, of all rags, explaining the situation. His claims are simple: (1) Mr Jefferson sounds guilty, and Mr Hastert has no desire to interfere in his prosecution; (2) he is not concerned IF the FBI should be able to search a Congressional office, “but rather HOW to do it within the boundaries of the Constitution,” his emphasis. Interestingly enough, Mr Hastert does not anywhere even imply how or why this has anything to do with the Constitution. Indeed, in everything I know about the Constitution, as well as in everything I have read regarding this incident written recently by Constitutional scholars, the Constitution does not in any way protect a sitting member from such investigations. Best of all, the same day that the op-ed went to press, House leaders conceded that they have no protection from a court-issued warrant, “but they said they want procedures established” for such searches and have sent Congress’ lawyers to meet with Justice to figure out guidelines for such searches. Ms Pelosi was the sole voice that came up with a coherent complaint: given that the legislative needs to have complete independence from the executive, it sets a dangerous precedent if the executive can raid their offices and obtain documents related to legislative issues. In other words, even Mr Bush cannot have access to all conversations that go on in the House; e.g., investigations of executive-branch activities.)

Now, call me crazy, but this doesn’t seem to add up. Don’t get me wrong: I would like to believe that the separation of powers could protect honorable members of Congress in their capacity as a check against the executive. But I can’t believe that the GOP would sit idly by throughout this administration’s unprecedented (and, many say, unconstitutional) power-grab. If they were worried about setting precedents, e.g., if they were worried about giving this type of power to President Hillary, then they would have gone crazy about any number of issues over the last six years (most notably the signing statements). I know that this Congress is NOT investigating the administration or hiding anything from it; they rubber stamp him and he does likewise, so what in the world would they want to protect from the eyes of the executive? And I can’t fathom that the GOP would risk such division or even all-out war on the basis of something so arcane as Constitutional powers, particularly in an election year, particularly to defend a member of Congress accused of corruption, particularly when their own party is under scrutiny for such, particularly when this whole thing could easily appear to be a demand for special treatment. The GOP is already hurting; the last thing they would ever risk is further alienation from middle class and swing voters by ostensibly claiming they are above the law.

What seems to be at issue here is the prior assumption of immunity on the part of House members. Something tells me that members of Congress, on the basis of this assumption, keep all sorts of things in their office that they don’t want anyone to see. This could be anything from receipts from the hooker they frequent to the body of Jimmy Hoffa. Regardless, this is the only thing that makes sense to me of their ill-informed, speciously justified, poorly planned, yet massive and concerted mobilization against the administration this week.



Everyone critical of Justice keeps pointing out that in 219 years no Congressional office has been raided, as if this should arouse our sympathy for their plight. This strikes me as the most pathetic miscalculation of all. I imagine many people in the country, who think that politician and crook are synonymous, are wondering why in 219 years a good number of bastards have used a public office as a safe haven for records of their illicit activities.

But the biggest idiots, as usual, are the Democrats. Just think: if they sat back and watched the GOP divide on this, they could have hammered them with insinuations just like those I am making above. None of the events would have changed, yet they would have come out looking tough on corruption and honest. As it stands, they risk looking like they are trying to defend a party member who is corrupt and takes bribes, as well as encouraging such speculation about their own offices.

Which brings me back to my original comment: What the hell is going on in Washington?

I need to write shorter emails.



-W