Caught red-handed on Capitol Hill

Even by Washington standards, the FBI affidavit about the travels–and schemes–of Democratic Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana is remarkable. I mean, when the feds decide–for the first time in history–to raid a member of Congress's office, they had better have the goods on the guy.

At least that's what some members of Congress are complaining about. While careful not to sanction Jefferson's activities, they were busy raising the "separation of powers" question about the raid of Jefferson's office. All of which provokes the most important question: Why make it look like you're defending someone who was caught red-handed, on videotape, putting a briefcase full of $100,000 in cash (in $100 bills) into his car? It's bad enough that the American public already thinks that 77 percent of all members of Congress take bribes; should they now believe it is virtually unanimous?

I don't know what the rationale of the FBI was for the Saturday night raid of Jefferson's office. Maybe they issued a subpoena and nothing happened. Maybe they didn't. Maybe they had other reasons to go in. But what I do know is that shortly after Jefferson was taped putting the satchel full of cash into his 1990 Lincoln Town Car and driving away, the feds raided his D.C. home and found $90,000 of it–in frozen food containers in his fridge. Now, that's inventive.

This whole case was not just strung together in a few minutes. The FBI has an informant who was wired and who recorded a dinner exchange in which Jefferson was apparently trying to up his take on a share of a high-tech business in Nigeria, which he was promoting in exchange for the money. At one point, the two started passing notes about his percentage take and Jefferson wrote: "All these damn notes we're writing to each other as if we're being watched by the FBI."

Well, guess what? They were being watched. And now the public is watching–not only Jefferson, but Abramoff, Cunningham, et al. And now it's kinda hard to say this is just a partisan mess on Capitol Hill, since Jefferson is a Democrat. So as the members of Congress keep complaining about the separation-of-powers issue, perhaps they should start worrying about their constituents–who see this as an issue of simple corruption that needs to be fixed. And fast.