Justice Department standoff ended in compromise

Just when the blogosphere thought that it knew the full extent of the incident between Dennis Hastert and the Justice Department, it turns out that there is much more to it.  In the end, it almost resulted in the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, according to Saturday's New York Times:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the FBI Director, Robert S. Mueller III,and senior officials and career prosecutors at the Justice Departmenttold associates this week that they were prepared to quit if the WhiteHouse directed them to relinquish evidence seized in a bitterlydisputed search of a House member's office, government officials saidFriday.

One week ago from today, FBI agents raided the property of Democratic Congressman William Jefferson for his role in the Jack Abramoff bribery scandal.  Instead of the Republicans using Jefferson as a poster-boy for Democratic campaign hypocrisy (culture of corruption), House Speaker Dennis Hastert and a number of Republican leaders rhetorically attacked the Justice Department, saying that the raid constituted an effort by the inflated Executive Branch to exercise unwarranted power over the lawmakers that make up the Legislative Branch.  Of course though, the raid was warranted by a judge, therefore perfectly legal.

The Justice Department responded to this rhetorical attack by leaking information, which might or might not be true, to ABC News that embarrassed Dennis Hastert by hinting that he was also part of the Jack Abramoff probe.

Hastert responded to these attacks by going on the radio and slamming the Justice Department for over-stepping its boundary by engaging in that FBI raid on Jefferson's property.  With a firestorm already under way, President Bush had a few choices to make.  He could fight Hastert and the rest of the Legislative Branch by letting the Justice Department disclose all of the Jefferson documents found in the raid.  Or, could tell the Justice Department to return all of the confiscated documents.  Instead of one of those two decisions, Bush chose to take the middle ground: seal the documents for 45 days and hope that the two sides, the Department of Justice and Dennis Hastert, can work out a deal in that time.

This New York Times column shows how if Bush had chosen to order the Justice Department to return all the documents seized, then both the Attorney General and FBI Director would have resigned, along with their deputies.  They did not want to be prevented from doing their job, which is enforcing the law.  Putting it simply, Bush is already isolated anyway.  Those resignations would only have isolated him even more, turning part of his own cabinet against him and awarding Hastert ultimate power.  Instead, the President made the wiser move by taking the middle ground solution.  Just imagine though if it had gone the other way.

As far as the raid goes, I think that I speak for most Americans in saying that if FBI investigations and raids can target normal Americans, the same should apply for members of Congress.  No lawmaker on Capitol Hill, whether Democrat or Republican, should be above the law.