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Political crisis mounts over FBI raid on Congress
The ongoing uproar in Washington over the May 20 FBI raid on Capitol Hill has produced unprecedented divisions within the Bush administration and the Republican Party. A seemingly minor event—the bribery investigation into Democratic Congressman William Jefferson of Louisiana—has erupted into a major political conflict, with the potential to set off a serious constitutional crisis in the United States.
The FBI search was the first such intrusion by the executive branch into the office of a sitting congressman in US history.
The intervention by Bush last week to impose a 45-day cooling-off period in the dispute between the House of Representatives and the Department of Justice has failed to resolve the conflict. Tuesday saw diametrically opposed positions staked out. At a House committee hearing, Republican congressmen suggested that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales could be impeached, while Justice Department lawyers, in a motion filed with US District Court in Washington DC, claimed that congressional critics were seeking “general immunity on members of Congress from the usual criminal procedures.”
It now appears that Bush intervened, sequestering for 45 days materials seized by the FBI from Jefferson’s Capitol Hill office rather than acceding to demands from House Speaker Dennis Hastert (Republican of Illinois) for the return of the documents—only after a threat of mass resignations in the Justice Department. White House spokesman Tony Snow confirmed Friday that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, his deputy Paul McNulty and FBI Director Robert Mueller had threatened to resign if Bush yielded to the demand, presented in a joint letter from Hastert and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Democrat of California).
The inner circle of the Bush White House is divided, according to a report May 28 in the Washington Post, with Vice President Dick Cheney and his legal adviser, David Addington, supporting Hastert and the congressional Republicans against Gonzales and the FBI. Domestic security adviser Frances Townsend was said to be siding with the Justice Department, while political operatives like Karl Rove were seeking to prevent the conflict from exploding into a full-fledged confrontation between the executive and legislative branches.
The congressional Republicans are divided, largely on institutional lines, with House Republicans for the most part backing Hastert and Senate Republicans endorsing the FBI raid. Senate Majority Leader William Frist, appearing on Fox News Sunday, said he was “okay” with the search. “No House member, no senator, nobody in government should be above the law of the land, period,” he said, dismissing the violation of the constitutional separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches.
More
http://wsws.org/articles/2006/jun2006/raid-j02.shtml
The intervention by Bush last week to impose a 45-day cooling-off period in the dispute between the House of Representatives and the Department of Justice has failed to resolve the conflict. Tuesday saw diametrically opposed positions staked out. At a House committee hearing, Republican congressmen suggested that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales could be impeached, while Justice Department lawyers, in a motion filed with US District Court in Washington DC, claimed that congressional critics were seeking “general immunity on members of Congress from the usual criminal procedures.”
It now appears that Bush intervened, sequestering for 45 days materials seized by the FBI from Jefferson’s Capitol Hill office rather than acceding to demands from House Speaker Dennis Hastert (Republican of Illinois) for the return of the documents—only after a threat of mass resignations in the Justice Department. White House spokesman Tony Snow confirmed Friday that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, his deputy Paul McNulty and FBI Director Robert Mueller had threatened to resign if Bush yielded to the demand, presented in a joint letter from Hastert and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Democrat of California).
The inner circle of the Bush White House is divided, according to a report May 28 in the Washington Post, with Vice President Dick Cheney and his legal adviser, David Addington, supporting Hastert and the congressional Republicans against Gonzales and the FBI. Domestic security adviser Frances Townsend was said to be siding with the Justice Department, while political operatives like Karl Rove were seeking to prevent the conflict from exploding into a full-fledged confrontation between the executive and legislative branches.
The congressional Republicans are divided, largely on institutional lines, with House Republicans for the most part backing Hastert and Senate Republicans endorsing the FBI raid. Senate Majority Leader William Frist, appearing on Fox News Sunday, said he was “okay” with the search. “No House member, no senator, nobody in government should be above the law of the land, period,” he said, dismissing the violation of the constitutional separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches.
More
http://wsws.org/articles/2006/jun2006/raid-j02.shtml
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