Finally, some common sense is being shown by a politician.... http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,197313,00.html
I heard Vitter on WWL today. He was all about the search. I know when I worked in Tauzin's office Jefferson was considered the black sheep of the LA delegation. He wasn't liked by anyone R of D.
I've been watching Vitter on this. He's doing a great job, so far. In his first term, he has bucked the system, and gone after the more moderate republicans. So far, so good.
What a flip-flop! Frist was the first congressman to object on separation of powers grounds and made three statements last week clearly objecting. Suddenly he remembers that he is a presidential candidate, and changed the issue to "nobody in government should be above the law". It is breaking with his republican and democratic colleagues, but it will sound great with the voters in 2008! Another administration decision resulting in a split among Republicans will not help them in 2006 elections, though.
You'll be happy to know that Landriue has also voiced the same opinion as Vitter. She actually spoke out in favor of the search before he did. Looks like for once both of our Senators got something right.
So hypothetically, a congressman could be selling crack out of his office, and some elected officials do not want to allow the search of that office, even if they have just cause and a warrant. It doesn't really matter what the search was for, whether it was looking for drugs, documents, panties,... it just doesn't matter as long as the judge who signed the warrant saw just cause for the search. Let's remember that this search was conducted after searches of both his N.O. and D.C. homes. This is a textbook example of separation of powers working. The judicial branch provided approval for the executive branch to reel in a legislative member who was overstepping his authority. The system worked. Checks and balances. Imagine that, it worked, and now we need to "fix" it.
The issue for Congress is the way they did it. It was unprecendented in the history of Congress, it was public and is just one of several recent executive attempts to infringe upon legislative privilege. The political implication of course, is that the republican executive and the republican juduciary wanted to make a loud issue out of the Democratic Congressman Jefferson's legal troubles and stepped out of their turf without proper protocol. After the republican scandals they may have been trying to get that Jefferson story some more emphasis. Politics. Next year there may be a democratic Congress. Investigations into executive scandals will surely be more likely. In that case, should a democratic Congress be allowed to just send over the Capitol Police to seize records in an republican executive office without making proper requests? They seized every record in the congressman's office, much of which contained political Democratic party business, which the republicans just happen to know, now that they possess it. It was more than a simple criminal investigation. There are politics all over this episode.
This is all out of line. You phrase things all wrong, very accusatory like Oliver Stone. Making conclusions without any basis in fact. Why didn't you point out in there that the Justice Dept. had already requested the documents from Jefferson and his attorneys? They had. Agree with the poster, checks and balances worked here and no changes will be made in Congress over this. There's no changes to make......they got a warrant. They asked Jefferson for the docs and for everything to remain private but he said no. Hell, a Democratioc minority leader in Congress caleld for him to be removed from his his Ways and Means committeemanship.
I'll phrase things any way I want to, chief. Just like you do. It's a forum for political discussion, for heaven's sake. If you have some point, then make it, but don't even dream of trying to tell me what I think, what I say, or how I say it.
