They will drag this out as long as possible.

No investigation for 9-11, WMDs, Plame, torture, Katrina, etc. but I bet there will be one for this.

Dead on. Don’t forget the hacking of Democrat computers
http://www.wired.com/news/poli….._tophead_5
http://www.boston.com/news/nat…..extensive/

and the bugging of the UN before the Iraq invasion:
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/pap…..nes-in.php
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wor…..492146.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wor…..715980.stm
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/M…..5Ak01.html

Does anyone really believe that, if they’d be willing to tap Kofi Annan’s and Jaques Chiraq’s phones, they’d have even momentary qualms about spying on domestic political enemies?

Ceci (101):
Feingold and Obama voted to confirm?!? Jesus…..

My money says the 45-day seal is just a foot-dragger, to maximize airplay of the “See?!? The Dems are doing it TOO!” song and dance until November.

And, while, unlike Ms. Smith, I’m no expert on law, I can’t help but feel that, just as with public figures who, by virtue of their visibility, are not afforded the same protections against libel and slander as private citizens, our elected officials should be subject to greater scrutiny and accountability because A) they are, in effect, our paid employees, and B) their actions have such a significantly greater impact upon the welfare of constituents than the average private citizen. And John (#40), that’s not a “proto-facist” stance, but a “transparency in government” one.

We’re not going to know the answers to a lot of these questions until the investigation and trials are over. We can speculate about Gonzalez’s motives and the President’s motives all we want. Or we can sit and watch carefully what is released. Don’t just watch CNN and MSNBC for it though. Dig through the diggers. Smoking Gun, for example, which seems particularly apt at getting their hands on key documents. Watch for what you’re not being told in the mainstream and seek it out (stop speculating).

The problem with speculating is that the speculation becomes news, which turns speculation into misinformation. As the wheel turns and the news becomes bigger, the speculation-turned-misinformation becomes disinformation.

I’ll be interested to find out what was in that office that the FBI needed. It could be a lot of things.

About the speculation of the president’s motives: I do think that the FBI probably has an idea of what is there, and if key pieces of info for the investigation are inexplicably missing, then I think we’ll see the blow-up within the Executive branch that we should have seen with Plame.

I just don’t see the signs that the FBI is working for the administration in this.

A Gonzales/Republican/White House fishing expedition?

In other words, with so many Republicans on Capitol Hill trying to ward off charges of being corrupt, maybe Gonzales ordered the raid on Rep. Jefferson’s office to try to find possible evidence of any other “dirty” Democrats connected to Rep. Jefferson, to try to even the imbalance between the large number of Republicans facing federal investigations, and possible indictments, relative to the small number of Democrats.

Thus, Gonzales’ fishing expedition.

Unless, of course, the Justice Department suspects Rep. Jefferson of an additional crime besides the $100,000 bribery scandal…which is chicken feed compared to the millions of dollars involved in the Abramoff and Ney scandals, or the billions of dollars unaccounted for by Republicans in the Iraq War.

However, if I were one of the Republican lapdogs in Congress, I would be very concerned about Gonzales getting the telecom company which provides Capitol Hill telephone services to set up a “secret room” in Washington D.C. from which to “data-mine” Capitol Hill phone calls (of both Democrats and Republicans) in the search for patterns…like who talks with which journalists, especially just before a journalist has an article published which reveals closely-held White House secrets.

In other words, since we know the Bush administration wire-tapped and monitored the U.N. ambassadors’ offices up in New York City before the Iraq War to gather intelligence on the ambassadors for “leverage,” then why would anyone in Congress (whether Republican or Democrat) believe that the Bush administration wouldn’t do the same thing to members of Congress?

I don’t believe people on Capitol Hill have grasped the fact, since BushCo believes it can conduct warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens, that they, too, are vulnerable to BushCo conducting warrantless surveillance of them, whether at home or while in their offices on Capitol Hill.

Remember when John Bolton’s Senate confirmation hearing bogged down after it was discovered that he’d been getting Gen. Hayden, the head of the NSA, to hand over unredacted NSA intercepts because Bolton was curious about what “redacted” U.S. citizens had said in conversations intercepted by the NSA? Did Dick Cheney make similar requests of Gen. Hayden? George W. Bush? Douglas Feith? David Addington? Scooter Libby? Condi Rice?

Does anyone believe that the Bush administration wouldn’t hesitate to illegally put House and Senate members, and their staffs, under surveillance, to help “leverage” the BushCo agenda through Congress? Especially, as it now appears, BushCo believes the leaker behind the NY Times’ illegal NSA “data-mining” surveillance story late last year just might be a member of Congress, or one of their staff, who was one of the few members of Congress privy to this information?

What makes members of Congress, of both the Democratic and Republican Parties, think that BushCo would treat them any differently than BushCo is treating millions upon millions of ordinary U.S. citizens who have had their privacy invaded in the name of BushCo’s Eternal War on Terror and national security?

If the members of Congress don’t get this, then they are all bigger fools than even I imagined.

Bush’s statement: So today I am directing the Department of Justice to seal all the materials recovered from Congressman Jefferson’s office for the next 45 days and not to allow access to anyone involved in the investigation.

We know we have to parse Bush’s words very carefully. Some non-partisan FBI investigators probably nabbed a pile of evidence in Jefferson’s office that incriminates either BushCo or (more likely) Hastert. Hastert flips out. With the evidence now out of untrusted hands, someone “not involved in the investigation” gets a chance to comb through the documents and remove any incriminating evidence.

It’s either that or Hastert realizes that his office might be next.

I suspect the former. One thing is certain: Bush has not suddenly developed a concern for protecting the Constitution — especially to bail out a Democratic Representative.

Jefferson ignored subpoenas for over a year. Specifically, he ignored a court order for documents from his office. Historically, people of both parties turn over documents when presented with a court order. Historically, people of both parties obey subpoenas issued by the judiciary. Pray tell, what was the FBI and the judicial branch to do when Jefferson decided to break precident? Or can he do whatever he wants in his office, because congressional offices are beyond the reach of the law? If so, I want my own magic room where can hide shit that’s beyond the reach of government too.

Jefferson ignored subpoenas for over a year. No Republican recently under investigation has done that. Also, he ignored a court order for papers in his office. A court order. Something from the judiciary branch. Historically, people of both parties under investigation have turned over documents when ordered by the court. Pray tell, what was the FBI to do when Jefferson decided start ignoring court orders? Or are you saying that there are protections for criminal evidence hidden in congressional offices? Things like bags of crack? Could they start running a prostitution ring out of congressional offices, because, anything that goes on there is above the law?