The Daily Background

On Monday, I expected that Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA, totally corrupt) would resign from office over his 16-count indictment on bribery charges. I reasoned:

The indictment took far too long, and every day that that smarmy son of a bitch Jefferson sat unindicted, was another day that Republicans could hold him up and claim that corruption was more of an issue among the Democratic ranks than their own (which, by sheer numbers, is patently untrue, but it will now be even more blindingly obvious with Jefferson’s absence).

Although Jefferson has claimed so far that he is innocent, it is extremely difficult to withstand a federal indictment if you’re a public official, because of the volume of proof that they have to submit to grand juries in order to secure the indictment in the first place. So while Jefferson may still claim innocence, I would be dumbfounded if he did not resign from office. The sooner the better. People who hide $90,000 in dirty bribe money in their freezers have no place in our Congress.

It now seems that Jefferson is only going to “temporarily” cede his seat on the House Committee on Small Business– a far cry from the complete resignation he should tender. Republicans want to vote him out of Congress while Dems have referred the issue to the House Ethics Committee. Frankly, I side with the Republicans on this, although they provided a huge amount of shelter to their own indicted masses in 2006. Jerome over at MyDD has this to say on kicking Jefferson out:

Rep. William Jefferson now has his indictment on federal corruption charges in hand. He should leave on his own accord, right? And if not, kick him out to the curb.

Democrats really screwed up by not dealing with Jefferson during the last cycle, because the perception that is created now, is potentially one of hypocrisy. In 2006, they ran against the Culture of Corruption that was among the Republican ranks, and Jefferson too was among the corrupt. The Democrats won power, and now one of their own on on federal charges of racketeering, soliciting bribes and money laundering.

I agree completely. Yes, Jefferson is innocent until proven guilty like everybody else, but we’ve got to hold members of Congress to a higher standard than the bare legal minimum. I think at the very least, members of Congress have an obligation not to be caught on FBI videotapes accepting $100,000 in bribes and later having that cash found in their freezer during a raid.

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