It truly looks as if President George Bush is proving to be a “uniter, not a divider”:
The constitutional clash pitting Congress against the executive branch escalated Wednesday as the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House demanded the immediate return of materials seized by federal agents when they searched the office of a House member who is under investigation in a corruption case.
The demand, by Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, underscored the degree of the anger generated among members of both parties on Capitol Hill by the search on Saturday night at the office of Representative William J. Jefferson, Democrat of Louisiana, who has been accused of accepting bribes.
“The Justice Department was wrong to seize records from Congressman Jefferson’s office in violation of the constitutional principle of separation of powers, the speech or debate clause of the Constitution, and the practice of the last 219 years,” Mr. Hastert and Ms. Pelosi said in a rare joint statement.
Jefferson is demanding the same thing in court but it’s clear both leaders are holding their noses for having to seem like they’re in any way championing him. And, this New York Times piece reports, administration officials are professing shock at the way Congress is reacting
Justice Department officials, who have said the search was proper and necessary, did not appear ready to return materials taken from the lawmaker’s official House suite, setting the stage for a court battle to resolve competing claims of constitutional protection and criminal inquiry.
In a statement, the agency said it was trying to resolve the dispute in a way “that meets law enforcement’s needs and also allays any institutional concerns that Congress may have.”
Privately, Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation officials expressed dismay at the tone of statements by Mr. Hastert and Ms. Pelosi.
The officials said there was virtually no possibility that any material taken legally during the search would be returned since it was now in the custody of the F.B.I. as evidence in an active criminal case.
As the Times notes, there is a supreme irony in all of this. The Jefferson case at first glance looks like a godsend to GOPers, who could use it to declare that in the “culture of corruption” some Democrats aren’t culturally challenged. But instead, it has proven to be a yet ANOTHER Bush administration crisis raising the eyebrows of some Republicans who aren’t lock-step administration defenders. And it actually turned out to unite the two parties — against the administration. And now there is OTHER fallout:
The tense conflict is also developing into a potential new problem for President Bush.
The White House has reached out to Republicans on Capitol Hill to allay concerns about the president’s low poll numbers and to try to heal deep rifts within the party over a variety of issues, including immigration.The constitutional confrontation is doing nothing to help with that effort.
One lawmaker whose stance will be important to the fate of the immigration legislation, Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the Wisconsin Republican who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, on Wednesday set a hearing for next Tuesday on the implications of the search.
Mr. Sensenbrenner called the subject of the hearing “Reckless Justice: Did the Saturday Night Raid of Congress Trample the Constitution?”
Not good.
A key question is what this does to Bush’s political capital which seems in danger of depleting so much that he may soon have to declare a political Chapter 13.
The administration on so many issues has counted on the party’s Congressional elite and base to circle the wagons. It’s hard to circle the wagons if some angry wagon drivers decide they’d rather take a walk then get the wagons in place.
There are actually several issues at play in this controversy: (1) The issue of Jefferson (2) The issue of separation of powers and (3) The issue of how this administration carefully examines laws to see how they can use them to in effect expand the role of the executive branch of America and then shatters the conventional wisdom. The administration’s slogan may be: “Just do it.”
On the other hand, there’s the issue of how this will play with the general public (watch polls). Will the public see this as a bunch of powerful politicos wanting to be immune from probing investigators and not care or reject the separation of powers argument? Or will the public hear the bipartisan outcry and feel this administration needs to be reigned in?
And will many voters feel the only way to really do that is to return to divided government so there is strong oversight of the Republican controlled executive branch? (Democrats: Don’t count your chickens until you know you have the skills to hatch them.)
TWO INTERESTING OTHER VIEWS. Read them in full.
- Ed Morrissey thinks Republican leaders are making a huge mistake and, in an update says of bipartisan unity: “At least we have bipartisan unity on stupidity and base arrogance, if that can be seen as an improvement.”
- Americablog’s John Aravosis offers some intriguing, specific analysis of why he thinks some things are playing out the way they are. Key quotable quote: “According to ABC, the bribery/corruption investigations are now looking at Hastert himself. The Justice Department is now denying this, but hey, when have we known the Bush administration to tell the truth about anything?”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.