Finally!

From The Washington Post:

Federal authorities accused Rep. William J. Jefferson yesterday of using his congressional office and staff to enrich himself and his family, charging the Louisiana Democrat with offering and accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to support business ventures in the United States and several West African nations.

The 16-count indictment also accused Jefferson, a former co-chairman of congressional caucuses on Nigeria and African trade, of racketeering, money laundering and obstruction of justice. The indictment was handed up by a federal grand jury and capped a long and tumultuous FBI investigation.

The grand jury said Jefferson, 60, had solicited a bribe for himself and family members in a congressional dining room, falsely reported trips to Africa as official business, sought to corrupt a senior Nigerian politician and promoted U.S. financing for a sugar factory in Nigeria whose owner paid fees to a Jefferson family company in his home state.

The indictment said that at one point, Jefferson drove in his Lincoln Town Car through the streets of Arlington with $100,000 in marked FBI bills meant for a top Nigerian official whose assistance Jefferson needed for a business venture. The lawmaker allegedly stowed $90,000 in his home freezer, wrapped in aluminum foil and concealed inside frozen-food containers.

The funds would be a down payment, Jefferson is accused of explaining to an associate, to ensure that "the little hook is in there."

It's about time they got around to indicting him. Other people are already serving their jail sentences for paying him the bribes which he is "accused" of taking. However all this is not the real story. What really makes all this interesting is the reaction of the Congressional Black Caucus:

Democratic leaders fear that Rep. William J. Jefferson's indictment yesterday on racketeering and bribery charges, coming exactly one year after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi engineered his ouster from the powerful Ways and Means Committee, could rekindle a smoldering dispute between the speaker and black lawmakers who were once pillars of her power.

For months, the Louisiana Democrat's mounting legal peril has bedeviled Democrats as they sought first to point to corruption as a tool to oust Republicans from control of Congress, then pressed for ethics and lobbying changes that they said would usher in a new era of clean politics on Capitol Hill. For every thrust Democrats made against the GOP, Republicans parried with Jefferson, saying problems in Congress were bipartisan.

As an aside notice here how the Post writer attempts to create the impression that Jefferson was the ONLY example of corruption which Republicans could find in the currently serving Democrat House and Senate membership. We could point out the Diane Feinstein scandal in which she was caught using her position as chairperson and ranking member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee to improperly steer contracts to her husband's company, lining his - and her - pockets. Then there was the Harry Reid scandal in which the Senate Democrat made nearly a million dollars on a corrupt land deal. Then there is the Nancy Pelosi scandal where it seems that San Fran Nan was trying to circumvent campaign finance laws. We could go on with this, but you get the point. Now let's get back to the Congressional Black Caucus:

Through it all, much of the Congressional Black Caucus has stood by Jefferson and against the Democratic leadership. And yesterday, Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.), a veteran caucus member, said it would be "as supportive of our colleague as possible, in terms of saying a person in America is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty."

. . . last June, many members of the caucus were incensed when the Democratic Caucus voted to remove Jefferson from the Ways and Means Committee, where he had a hand in tax, trade and health-care policy. Federal investigators were closing in on Jefferson, with guilty pleas from his business associates and word of cash found bundled in his freezer.

This business about the presumption of innocence is probably the third most misunderstood thing about the constitution. The first most misunderstood being the Establishment Clause and the second being the Second Amendment. The presumption of innocence means that when a person stands before the bar of justice that the judge and jury must assume that the defendant is innocent until and unless the government can prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It does not mean that the public must blind itself to the truth.

Jefferson is not "alleged" to have had $90,000.00 in bribe money hidden in his freezer he had $90,000.00 in bribe money. When the federal prosecutor presents his case to the jury he will have to first show the video tape of Jefferson taking the bribe then present the money found in Jefferson's freezer and show that the serial numbers on the bills match the numbers recorded by the FBI when they received the money for the sting from the bank. That will prove in court that the money found in Jefferson's house was bribe money.

It is right and proper for the government to have to jump through hoops like that before they put someone in jail. If some defect in the way the evidence was gathered or some error in the application for the search warrant for Jefferson's house can be found by the defense the money might be thrown out as evidence in the trial. It might even result in Jefferson being acquitted of the charges against him. However that all pertains to the courtroom. The general public, his constituents in Louisiana and his colleagues in the House are not an empaneled jury deciding "guilty" or "not guilty" for purposes of the law. We are free to look at all the facts, not just what is admitted into evidence in court, and make a reasonable decision.

Jefferson, just like O. J. Simpson and Claus von Bülow before him, is guilty as sin. Which makes the question of the hour why the Congressional Black Caucus is willing to go to the mat for him.