Webloggin » So This Is What Democrats Mean By Ethics and Homeland Security

Q: What happens to Congressmen who hide money in their freezers and use the national guard to divert needed resources for disaster recovery to a freezer recovery mission?

A: If that person is a Democrat they get rewarded with a coveted spot on the Department of Homeland Security Committee.

In another blow to the Democrat lie that they were going to usher in a new era of high ethical standards Nancy Pelosi has awarded Rep. William Jefferson for his misdeeds by appointing him to oversee the ultra important Department of Homeland Security.

Rep. William Jefferson, the Louisiana Democrat who’s facing an ongoing federal corruption probe, is being granted a spot on the Homeland Security Committee, according to Democratic aides.

The appointment will be announced Friday, according to one aide who requested anonymity because the decision isn’t yet official.

Jefferson was removed from his seat on the Ways and Means Committee, one of the most important panels in Congress, by Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) last summer in an attempt to show how seriously Democrats viewed the allegations of corruption.

But the move by Pelosi, who was still minority leader at the time, infuriated members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who said Jefferson shouldn’t be punished unless he is indicted; federal prosecutors have yet to bring an indictment, despite an FBI raid 18 months ago on his home that yielded $90,000 in cash in his freezer.

Other lawmakers were angling for the seat on Homeland Security, which was the last slot available on the panel, according to another Democratic aide.

The committee oversees the Homeland Security Department and its web of agencies designed to protect against terrorism on U.S. soil.

For some odd reason the government who spends years investigating and prosecuting the bogus outing of Valerie Plame has not yet indicted William Jefferson. Perhaps it is not so strange. They are obviously in office to serve themselves.

Here’s the refresher on our latest representative of high ethical standards that the Democrats are peddling:

It takes a particular kind of nerve to be filmed taking $100,000 in alleged bribe money out of an FBI informant’s car, have the FBI later find the same cold, hard cash wrapped in aluminum foil in your freezer — and then adamantly claim that you have done nothing wrong.

But Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana has that rare trait — to the horror of his fellow Democrats who are hoping to convince voters that it’s the Republicans who are corrupt. “There are two sides to every story,” Jefferson said, restating his innocence in a Capitol Hill news conference yesterday. “There are certainly two sides to this story.”

Maybe so. But an 83-page FBI affidavit released over the weekend — after a raid of Jefferson’s congressional office — alleges that Jefferson was caught on video taking a certificate for a 30 percent stake in a Nigerian company in exchange for his political influence, including intervening with the vice president of Nigeria.

The affidavit also says that, outside the Pentagon City Ritz-Carlton, Jefferson received a “leather briefcase which contained $100,000 cash in denominations of $100 bills” — and that $90,000 of it wound up in his freezer, concealed “inside various frozen food containers.” It says he referred to the cash as “African art” and laughed with a partner about “all these damn notes we’re writing to each other as if . . . the FBI is watching.”

I guess the Democrats are not so horrified after all. Talk show radio host Laura Ingraham has a great sound bite in her opening intro where she uses the phrase “pathetic pigs”. In this case no term could be closer to the truth.

Others : Michelle Malkin, The Political Pit Bull, WizBang