William Jefferson Whiplash

Ok, just what the bloody hell is going on around the Capitol?

Last week, just last week, we had Alberto Gonzales threatening to ignore the First Amendment and take the unprecedented steps of prosecuting journalists. We had the DOJ claiming they didn't have the security clearances to investigate the NSA Spying issue. We had the SEC unable to move forward on tracking the money flow involved in the NSA due to actions taken by John Negroponte. We had the FCC, who wouldn't lift a finger. We had allegations of warrantless physical searches, indications that AT&T had provided access to our email and Rep James Sensenbrenner was starting to talk about allowing ISPs to track our website visits, meanwhile Alberto Gonzales is already doing it, law or no law.

This week, James Sensenbrenner says that the raid on William Jeffersons office has created a Constitutional Crisis and in response Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Meuller have both threated to resign if the papers taken from Jefferson's Office - in a bribery case - are returned? What!!?

Jane at Firedoglake is completely flabberghasted on this one.

To say I do not understand WTF is going on between the Justice Department, the OVP, the White House and Congressional Republicans in the William Jefferson affair would be an understatement. I doubt right now if many can claim to know what this weird dance is all about.

Abu Gonzales has never found a position so base he could not justify at Dubya's request -- from torture to illegal wiretapping to threatening journalists and rubber stamping all manner of unlimited executive overreach -- but he's finally drawing a line in the sand over returning documents seized in a bribery scandal?

Dennis Hastert has gleefully played marionette to perhaps the biggest crook in the House, Tom DeLay, and has happily facilitated the White House's efforts to hack off limbs of Congressional authority, but now he's ready to force a constitutional crisis defending a member of the Black Congressional Caucus?

Georgia10 thinks is all about self-preservation.

I think Georgia is right, and then some. But what I wonder just what does this very sudden about face on privacy and Constitutional issues do to the Republican Congresses previous position that pretty much anything the NSA and FBI wanted to do to snoop and spy on the American people was just honky dory.

"If you've done nothing wrong - you have nothing to worry about!"

Hmm... look who'se looking mighty worried now.

What this really portrays isn't really a sudden concern for the sanctity of the Fourth Amendment, the only sanctity they're trying to preserve is that of Congress within the confines of the Capitol. If the FBI can raid William Jefferson's office - even with a subpeona and search warrant - then they can raid Dennis Hastert's Office, or James Sensenbrenners or Bill (I'm still being investigated by the SEC) Frist's office.

I think this is a far nastier situation than we'd really recognized so far.

Bush aides were also worried about a war with the Republican House if the president did not act.

"If you tell the House to stick it where the sun don't shine, you're talking about a fundamentally corrosive relationship between two branches of government," the senior administration official said. "They could zero out funding; they could say, 'Okay, you can do subpoenas, so can we.' "

As a matter of fact, the House can do subpeonas - hell, they should have been doing subpeonas for the last three years. Imagine if you will, the prospect of a retaliatory subpeona raid on the White House for things like the still missing Jack Abramoff entry records, or the classified executive orders that granted the NSA authority to setup their secret rooms at AT&T?

This is of course why the President has decided to create a 45-Day cooling off period, by holding the documents under seal for that time. The last thing he wants is to truly piss-off the House which has been covering his ass for the last five years. And the last thing the House wants is for the Federal Election Commission to start really looking into all the lobbying money that has flowed from Saucy Jack Abramoff to Hammerin' Tom Delay and through the pockets of all but Three House Republicans. Tom may be gone, but his money trail lingers.

Just keep remembering, that these guys are so scared - they forgot that they were defending a Democrat. Considering the type of low-ball dirty pool bullshit they've been pulling over the last decade (and more) against Democrats -- they have to be piss-stain afriad of something being discovered either in Jefferson's papers (where did the money come from, who else received bribes!) or in their own papers if additional raids are likely to be authorized.

And I wonder, just how does all of this play in the "Heartland"?

Well over at Redstate - this is what they have to say.

Courtesy of Speaker Dennis Hastert who had a staffer write wrote this editorial regarding the seizure of documents from Rep. Jefferson's office. The editorial is so opaque, so utterly and completely devoid of any meaningful information that one wonders why the Speaker went through the trouble of actually writing it. Perhaps it is better or more accurate to say that the Speaker non-wrote the editorial, since a writing with so much fluff and so little substance practically negates itself.

Ouch! Not going over too well it would seem.

Vyan