Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

Bipartisan outrage voiced over FBI raid

WASHINGTON, May 23 (UPI) -- U.S. Democrat and Republican leaders expressed outrage over a weekend FBI raid on the office of a U.S. House of Representatives member from Louisiana.

Saturday night, agents entered the Washington office of Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., who has been under investigation for 14 months for allegedly accepting bribes in connection with business ventures in Africa, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

Monday, Jefferson convened a news conference to condemn the raid as an "outrageous intrusion" and to deny any wrongdoing. A report Monday said the FBI had videotaped Jefferson allegedly receiving a payoff and investigators said they found $90,000 of the funds in a freezer in Jefferson's home.

The raid also drew criticism from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who said congressional lawyers have been asked to probe the legality, the Post said.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., also issued a statement denouncing the raid.

"Insofar as I am aware, since the founding of our Republic 219 years ago, the Justice Department has never found it necessary to do what it did Saturday night, crossing this separation of powers line, in order to successfully prosecute corruption by members of Congress," he said.

© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. (emphasis added)

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060523-070611-2376r

[F6 comment -- Jefferson may very well be, indeed apparently is, guilty as hell (see my prior reply to the post to which this post is a reply) -- but the big story here, the one to which everyone should be paying attention, the one consistent with and further to the whole theme of dubya the 'decider' (read 'dictator', quite literally), is dubya&co sending executive branch police, acting in furtherance of an executive branch investigation, to carry out an unprecedented raid on the legislative branch -- another not-so-little step toward outright martial law fascism, a trial run for larger future operations? -- not to mention, if this is the way the game's going to be played from now on, where have the raids been when it comes to the (many more) corrupt repub members of Congress -- Cunningham, Ney, Delay, et al? -- oh, that's right, silly me, I forgot, they're repubs -- though it does appear that said legislative branch repubs also regard this as a revoltin' development -- . . .]