Rep. Jefferson will face ethics investigation as House sets new standard
Yesterday, the U.S. House adopted a new standard for ethics investigations: an indictment warrants an automatic investigation. We also learned that the House Ethics Committee is undertaking an investigation of the recently indicted Congressman from Louisiana, William Jefferson:
Under pressure from Republicans, the House ethics committee announced Tuesday it would open an inquiry into the conduct of Representative William J. Jefferson, who relinquished his sole committee assignment in the wake of his indictment on corruption charges.
“Allegations such as these are extremely serious,” said Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones, Democrat of Ohio and chairwoman of the ethics panel. “It is always an issue of concern when a sitting elected official is charged with a crime.”
The committee sought to pre-empt Republican leaders, who later Tuesday forced a House vote on a resolution calling for the panel to investigate Mr. Jefferson’s conduct and recommend whether he should be expelled from the House. Democrats countered with a proposal that would require the ethics committee to automatically investigate any lawmaker under indictment or report within 30 days why it had chosen not to. Both proposals were approved overwhelmingly by the House.
A quick reverse
from Monday, when House leadership was saying that "Jefferson is innocent until proven guilty".
Perhaps this reverse of course was occasioned by a loud buzzing noise in the ears of House leaders, put there by House membership .
Or perhaps certain self-interested blocks in the House were frightened into line by Pelosi's proposal to allow outside groups to make ethics complaints. Or whatever.
One never really knows just what is going on in places like the United States House of Representatives.
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no improvement
Jefferson is not the issue; he is sawed off at the hips and he will cop a plea.
The issue is whether Nancy Pelosi, as Speaker of the House, will take effective measures to end corruption. By her action, and action is all that counts, the answer is NO, emphatically.
Consider the so-called new standard: the ethics committee is to automatically investigate a congressman who has been indicted....Really? Automatically?...
No, not really. Go read it again. They have 30 days to report why they are not going to investigate.
Report to who? Doesn't say, but don't fool yourself; you will never hear about it. Or, there will be a news release attacking the indictment as politically inspired or whatever, case closed. Or they can ignore the new standard. Or quietly change it as it suits them. Or whatever.
Consider: Should they investigate a congressman who is indicted, what good will that do? He will simply take the fifth. His corruption has already worked its ill effect on the Republic. The idea is to take measures of reform. Confirming the indictment after the fact hardly does this, the corrupt congressman is already caught and soon will cop a plea.
So nothing is changed. Still the same culture of corruption. Still the same House, same habits of thought and behavior: everyone does it, no one will know.
Nothing is changed: for the 5th time in 60 years they offer cosmetics, in the happy knowledge that you can fool some of the people all of the time.
Which brings this to the $10,000 not in the icebox of Jefferson. Who got that money?