Monday, June 04, 2007

It's about time...Rep. Jefferson indicted in bribery probe


Rep. Jefferson indicted in bribery probe
By LARA JAKES JORDAN and MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer 38 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Louisiana congressman William Jefferson (news, bio, voting record) received more than $500,000 in bribes and sought millions more in nearly a dozen separate schemes to enrich himself by using his office to broker business deals in Africa, according to a federal indictment Monday.


The charges came almost two years after investigators raided Jefferson's home in Washington and found $90,000 in cash stuffed in his freezer.
The indictment lists 16 counts, including racketeering, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice and conspiracy. He faces a possible maximum sentence of 235 years.


He is the first U.S. official to face charges under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits corporate bribery overseas.
Jefferson, through his lawyer, claimed innocence. He will be arraigned Friday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria.


The schemes were complicated and Jefferson set up front companies to hide the money and disperse it to family members, prosecutors said.


"But the essence of the charges are really very simple: Mr. Jefferson corruptly traded on his good office and on the Congress," said Chuck Rosenberg, the U.S. attorney in Alexandria.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) is expected to push this week for Jefferson to be stripped of his seat on the Small Business Committee, according to a leadership aide who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision had not yet been announced.
"If these charges are proven true, they constitute an egregious and unacceptable abuse of public trust and power," said Pelosi, D-Calif. "Democrats are committed to upholding a high ethical standard and eliminating corruption and unethical behavior from the Congress."
House Republican Leader John Boehner (news, bio, voting record) of Ohio said Jefferson should be expelled from Congress if he is found guilty and refuses to resign.


Jefferson, 60, whose congressional district includes New Orleans, has said little about the case publicly. He was re-elected last year despite the investigation.
His lawyer, Robert Trout, on Monday called the indictment "lengthy and creative" and accused prosecutors of "trying to create an offense."


"Even after they turned over every rock, they did not allege in this indictment that (Jefferson) promised anybody any legislation. There is no suggestion that he promised anyone any appropriations. There were no earmarks. There were no government contracts," Trout said during a news conference in Los Angeles.


Trout also said Jefferson has no intention of seeking a plea bargain. "He's obviously not happy about being indicted, but he's confident that when the facts are known he will be vindicated," Trout said about his client. "He is committed, he is confident and he is ready to fight."
Two of Jefferson's associates have struck plea bargains with prosecutors and have been sentenced.


Brett Pfeffer, a former congressional aide, admitted soliciting bribes on Jefferson's behalf and was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Another Jefferson associate, Louisville, Ky., telecommunications executive Vernon Jackson, pleaded guilty to paying between $400,000 and $1 million in bribes to Jefferson in exchange for his assistance securing business deals in Nigeria and other African nations. Jackson was sentenced to more than seven years in prison.


Both Pfeffer and Jackson agreed to cooperate in the case against Jefferson.
The impact of the case has stretched across continents and even roiled presidential politics in Nigeria. According to court records, Jefferson told associates he needed cash to pay bribes to the country's vice president, Atiku Abubakar.


Abubakar denied the allegations, which figured prominently in that country's presidential elections in April. He ran for the presidency and finished third.
In Lagos, Nigeria, Abubakar spokesman Garba Shehu said the former vice president "has always denied wrongdoing in the matter."


"He has only had official interaction with the congressman, who the vice president felt deserved a hearing because he was a ranking member of the U.S. Congress," Shehu said. "The vice president was in no way cited in this thing, so we feel vindicated."
While Abubakar is not cited by name, the indictment refers to "Nigerian Official A," a high-ranking official in Nigeria's executive branch who had a spouse in Potomac, Md. One of Abubakar's wives, Jennifer Douglas, lived in that Washington suburb. A search warrant for the Potomac home, combined with the indictment, makes clear that Abubakar is the unnamed Nigerian official.


As co-chair of a congressional caucus dedicated to African investment and trade, Jefferson was ideally positioned to influence business contracts with African governments. The indictment said Jefferson would meet with African officials and write official letters on behalf of businesses that agreed to provide kickbacks.


Court records indicate Jefferson was videotaped taking a $100,000 cash bribe from an
FBI' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> FBI informant who felt the congressman and another businessman had bilked her out of millions. Most of that money later turned up in the freezer in Jefferson's home.
In May 2006, the FBI raided Jefferson's congressional office, the first such raid on a congressman's Capitol office. That move sparked a constitutional debate over whether the executive branch had stepped over a boundary.


The raid's legality is still being argued on appeal. House leaders objected to the search, saying it was an unconstitutional intrusion on the lawmaking process. The FBI said the raid was necessary because Jefferson and his legal team had failed to respond to requests for documents.
Some but not all the documents seized in the raid have been turned over Justice Department prosecutors.


Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher said the documents helped bring the case against Jefferson. "Some of those documents that we were able to obtain through the process have indeed supported the charges that are presented today," Fisher said.
___
Associated Press writers Michael Blood in Los Angeles, Laurie Kellman in Washington and Edward Harris in Lagos, Nigeria, contributed to this report.

McCain, Romney clash over immigration


McCain, Romney clash over immigration
By BRENDAN FARRINGTON, Associated Press Writer 22 minutes ago
CORAL GABLES, Fla. - Republican presidential hopefuls John McCain (news, bio, voting record) and Mitt Romney clashed on Monday over the immigration bill, with McCain embracing the measure as a practical solution and Romney dismissing it as unworkable.
Speaking in politically crucial Florida, with its heavy concentration of Cuban and Haitian immigrants, McCain argued that while the bill is imperfect, it is an attempt to secure U.S. borders, help the economy and identify those who have entered the nation illegally.

The four-term Arizona senator chided rivals who are trying to score points on the issue. McCain never mentioned any names but his target was obvious — Romney.
"To want the office so badly that you would intentionally make our country's problems worse might prove you can read a poll or take a cheap shot, but it hardly demonstrates presidential leadership," McCain told members of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce.
Romney answered back.

"The immigration approach proposed by Senators McCain and Kennedy falls short of a workable solution to an important problem," the former Massachusetts governor said in a statement. Romney said he respected McCain, but his opposition was based on a "principled disagreement about policies and priorities related to enforcement of our immigration laws."
The immigration measure would tighten security on the Mexican border while allowing some of the 12 million illegal immigrants a chance to stay in the United States and eventually become citizens.

President Bush' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> President Bush has spoken out in favor of the bipartisan bill. Romney did not mention the president, instead describing the immigration approach of McCain and liberal icon Kennedy.
McCain said Bush understands the political implications.

"The president knows. He spent eight years as governor of Texas," McCain told The Associated Press after his speech. "The Republican Party must address this issue, if, in my part of the country, we expect to attract Hispanic voters."

McCain stands alone among the major candidates in supporting the bill. He has criticized Romney for opposing the measure based on provisions that would provide a path to legalization.
"I will never conduct my campaign in such a way that it makes our country's most difficult challenges harder to solve. I hope you will hold all candidates to that same standard. Pandering for votes on this issue, while offering no solution to the problem, amounts to doing nothing. And doing nothing is silent amnesty," McCain said to loud applause.

Another GOP rival, former New York city Mayor Rudy Giuliani, also opposes the bill, but has said he is willing to compromise on how to deal with the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States as long as he is satisfied all security issues are addressed.
Romney has not offered a detailed plan on how he would handle illegal immigrants, but he said recently a priority would be to deport criminals and remove illegal immigrants from government assistance programs.

Romney's response to the bill has varied with his audience. Most of his criticism has focused on the so-called Z-visa, a document proposed for registering the estimated 12 million illegal aliens in the country.

Last month in South Carolina, home to the type of social conservatives Romney is courting, he said, "I think we should not call it the 'Z' visa; we should call it the 'A' visa, because it's amnesty and that's what it stands for."
Yet a week later in Florida, he said, "There are some who get involved in whether it is technically amnesty or not and I'm not really trying to define what is technically amnesty. I'll let the lawyers do that."

Despite his amnesty complaints, Romney said he would not favor rounding up the illegal immigrants already in the country. Rather, he supports them self-reporting to immigration authorities.

McCain chose a supportive crowd to deliver his 25-minute address Monday. Many of the Miami area's business leaders are immigrants or children of immigrants. He was given an extended ovation before beginning his speech and his remarks were interrupted several times by applause.

"Florida is a living testament to the benefits of immigration, a great and prosperous state built in large part by immigrants who came here to escape tyranny and despair," he said.

SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN TO DELIVER ADDRESS ON IMMIGRATION



SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN TO DELIVER ADDRESS ON IMMIGRATION

Contact: Press Office
Monday, June 4, 2007
703-650-5550


ARLINGTON, VA - U.S. Senator John McCain will deliver remarks to the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce at 10:00 a.m. EDT. Below are Senator McCain's remarks, as prepared for delivery:
"Thank you for this opportunity to share with you a few thoughts about the issue that has occasioned much debate in our country: illegal immigration and the failure of the United States to secure our borders. It is a serious problem that poses many challenges, and how we address it will impact directly the destiny of the great nation we are blessed to call home. Those of us privileged to hold elective office have the responsibility to secure our borders and change the immigration policy that has allowed this intolerable situation to persist: a nation at war, confronting an enemy that means to do us great harm, has failed to control its borders, tolerated for years an immense wave of illegal immigration, and is presently unable to discern from the hundreds of thousands of people who cross our borders illegally each year, who came here to work; who came here for criminal purposes; and who came here to hurt us.


"This problem cannot be allowed to continue any longer. Finding an effective, just and practical solution is difficult, but it is our work to do, on our watch. The politics of Washington have encouraged us to leave solutions to the toughest problems for another unluckier generation of leaders. Problems are left unsolved year after year, because we fear the political consequences of seriously addressing them or value their utility as political attacks in our campaigns. Illegal immigration and our porous borders are problems that we have, to our shame, ignored for too long because it was too hard and politically risky to solve. But the problem has grown too acute and dangerous to ignore any longer. To do nothing now would be an unconscionable abrogation of our responsibilities to defend the security, prosperity and values of our country.


"A number of us, Republicans and Democrats, and the President, have tried to meet this responsibility. We have proposed a remedy that, while imperfect as all compromises are, is, nevertheless, a serious, comprehensive, and practical attempt to secure our borders, defend the rule of law, help our economy grow, and make it possible for the United States to know who has entered this country illegally, and who among them have done so for purposes more nefarious than making better lives for their families. As the legislation is debated in Congress, many changes will be proposed and some adopted. Many already have been. I welcome any attempt to meet our responsibility to fix our broken borders and immigration system. Our proposal has provoked criticism from some on both the left and right. Compromises usually do. People of good will, who take their responsibilities seriously, argue variously that our ideas are too tough or not tough enough. I do not question the sincerity of their convictions or their purpose in proposing other ways to address the problem. There is one premise most of us agree on: the status quo is unacceptable. Our borders are unsecured, our laws our being violated, and our current immigration laws do not meet the needs of a growing economy. And while we argue over the means to solve the problem, we should respect each other's intentions.


"Both proponents and opponents of the legislation agree on another point: the last attempt to address the problem, made over twenty years ago, was a failure. The immigration reform adopted in 1986 simply granted amnesty to the millions of illegal immigrants living in our country, and did virtually nothing to improve border security. It is important that we avoid repeating these mistakes. A country facing an enemy as malevolent as the enemy we face must have effective control of its borders. And we cannot prevent further waves of illegal immigration without drastically improving border security. Those improvements alone will not stop people from coming here illegally, but without them, we cannot stem the tide of illegal border crossings by those who are simply fleeing despair and injustice or those who mean us harm. So we began by authorizing tough and effective measures to secure our borders, which must be operational and visually certified before other provisions to reform our immigration laws take effect.
"We will increase the number of border patrol agents up to 20,000. We will complete 370 miles of border fencing, and 200 miles of vehicle barriers, which will not be, as some critics have suggested, all that will be constructed. We will continue until we have protected our border with fencing, vehicle barriers, ground sensors, unmanned aerial systems, cameras, advanced communications systems and the most up to date security technologies available to us. New detention facilities will be constructed to hold those who have crossed our border illegally. We will institute a tough new employment eligibility verification system, tamper proof biometric cards to prove to an employer that foreign workers are in this country legally, and impose substantial fines on employers who hire someone without proper status. We will not admit one temporary worker or grant one undocumented worker a visa until the Secretary of Homeland Security can certify that these tough, new measures are in place.


"As imperative as these measures are, they will not alone ensure our control of immigration or enable us to know the identity, whereabouts and purposes of the millions of undocumented workers who are in our country now. To address those problems, we must recognize that as long as the job market in our growing economy offers opportunities to immigrants, they will come here, legally or otherwise, for the same reasons immigrants have always come here: to escape poverty and injustice, and seize opportunities so abundant in our good and blessed country. Moreover, our economy needs them. Ask any orange grower, restaurant manager or hotel owner in Florida. We have proposed a temporary worker program that will discourage illegal immigration by allowing more workers a legal way to come here to fill jobs that are available to them and have not been taken by an American. It is genuinely temporary. It grants each worker a two year visa that can be renewed twice but only after th e worker has returned to his or her country for a year. They will be granted a visa only if they prove a job is waiting for them, and it didn't come at the expense of an American worker.


"The most difficult problem is what to do about the twelve million or more undocumented workers who live and work here now. No critic of our bill has offered a serious proposal to round up all these millions, many of whom have children born in this country, and ship them back to their countries of origin. There is simply no practical way to do that, and most Americans understand that. We have proposed a way to encourage them to come out from the underground economy, submit to a criminal background check, pay fines, back taxes and prove they are gainfully employed in exchange for a visa that would allow them to continue working here. Getting these people to declare themselves and prove they have come here for a job, pose no security threat and have no criminal record beyond entering the country illegally will enable our security and law enforcement officials to concentrate their resources on those who have come here to threaten our way of life rather than embrace it. DHS Secretary Chertoff, who helped negotiate this legislation, has warned that two million people in this country illegally have committed serious crimes. If some of them attempt to legalize their status, we will apprehend them. If they don't, we can concentrate our efforts on locating them and not rounding up lettuce pickers, hotel maids, and babysitters. Most importantly, we can devote all the resources necessary to finding terrorists who have broken our immigration laws, like three of the terrorists who intended to attack our soldiers at Ft. Dix.


"Those undocumented workers who declare themselves, pass criminal background checks, prove their employment, pay fines, taxes, learn English and study American civics may be offered eventually, and I stress eventually, a path to citizenship. Critics of the bill attack this as amnesty and a special path to citizenship that is denied to lawful immigrants. Both charges are false. Amnesty is what we gave in 1986, and it didn't work. It was unconditional forgiveness for breaking our laws. Illegal immigrants broke our laws and they should pay a penalty for doing so. We impose fines, fees and other requirements as punishment. And if the path to citizenship we offer them is 'special,' it is because it is harder, longer and more expensive than the path offered to those immigrants who come here legally. Those undocumented workers who attain legal status are not automatically provided a green card and citizenship. The process could take as long as thirteen years, and will cost them thousands of dollars, require them to learn English and understand our laws and culture, return to their country and get in the back of the line - not the front, not the middle, but the back of the line for a green card. That is a fair, practical and humane way of dealing with the problem of twelve million undocumented workers. And if someone objects to it, especially if they are a candidate for President, they should have the responsibility and courage to propose another way.


"The situation as it currently exists is de facto amnesty. These people are here in numbers too large, diffuse and concealed to round up and deport, which even critics concede is impractical. They will stay here. They will work. And we won't have any idea how many of them are simply here to earn a living and how many are here planning an attack. It is a hard problem, and I understand that. But the choice is between doing something, imperfect but effective and achievable, and doing nothing. I would hope that any candidate for President would not suggest doing nothing. And I would hope they wouldn't play politics for their own interests if the cost of their ambition was to make this problem even harder to solve. To want the office so badly that you would intentionally make our country's problems worse might prove you can read a poll or take a cheap shot, but it hardly demonstrates presidential leadership. Americans are problem solvers, and they want their leaders to be problem solvers, and to show the same common sense, civic-mindedness, sense of justice and humanity that they do. We have a chance now to secure our borders and place effective controls on immigration that benefit all of us, and enhance our ability to apprehend terrorists before they strike us. It is a common sense, conservative approach to the problem. Is any office worth sacrificing the progress we can make now to solve this crisis? I want to be President to do the hard but necessary things: to protect our country and defeat its enemies; to solve our country's biggest problems on our watch and not leave them to a more responsible, braver, and wiser generation of leaders. I make one pledge to you that I will keep no matter what. I will never conduct my campaign in such a way that it makes our country's most difficult challenges harder to solve. I hope you will hold all candidates to that same standard. Pandering for votes on this issue, while offering no solution to the pr oblem, amounts to doing nothing. And doing nothing is silent amnesty.
"I know that except for a very few people on the fringes of our society, we all value legal immigration. And though the waves of people who have come here over the centuries have posed some challenges to our society, immigration has always proved in the end to be a great and valued part of the American story. Irish, Italians, Poles, Cubans, Japanese, Mexicans and people from every country in every corner of the world have come here, assimilated, and given America renewed vigor and opportunities. Most arrived destitute, worked at any job that would put a little food on the table, and then they rose, or their children rose to succeed in every profession. And they made this country great. No other country in the world has so successfully absorbed immigrants and made them an asset and not a problem. Even in many developed democracies today, immigrants are left in a segregated, unassimilated underclass and pose serious and threatening challenges to the prosperity and stab ility of those countries. Here, people arrive from everywhere, and are given the opportunity to become citizens of the greatest nation on earth, a nation that is based not on tribal identity or ethnicity but on an idea, the boldest, bravest, truest political idea ever conceived by man: that all people are free, and endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights. As long as you embrace and defend that ideal, you are an American.


"How proud that makes me of my country. How proud that must make you. Florida is a living testament to the benefits of immigration, a great and prosperous state built in large part by immigrants who came here to escape tyranny and despair, live the American Dream, contribute to our greatness and defend our ideals. I am honored today by the presence of Miami's police chief, John Timoney, who arrived in this country from Ireland at the age of thirteen, and whose contributions to our country have earned our respect and gratitude. Florida has been well led by its most recent governors, my friends, Charlie Crist and Jeb Bush, both of whom have fought for immigration reform that protects our security, laws, economy, and values. I want to particularly salute former Governor Bush, for the recent column he wrote with the former chairman of my party, Ken Melhman, which made an eloquent and persuasive case for our proposal.
"As a country deeply rooted in a tradition of religious faith, we are taught to love our neighbors as ourselves. In the trackless deserts of Arizona, people who broke our laws, not to harm us but to possess for themselves the ideals and opportunities cherished here, are dying, led into the wilderness by unscrupulous smugglers of human cargo, and left to perish in an agonizing death. Allow me to quote from a newspaper article that put faces on a few of these forgotten people who died in the desert of my state in one year.


"'Maria Hernandez Perez was No. 93. She was almost 2. She had thick brown hair and eyes the color of chocolate.
"'Kelia Velazquez-Gonzales, 16, carried a Bible in her backpack. She was No. 109
"'John Doe, No. 143, died with a rosary encircling his neck. His eyes were wide open.'
"We can't let immigrants break our laws with impunity. We can't leave our borders so undefended that people who come here to hurt us can enter it as easily as someone following a dream of living in a great country. But these people are also God's children, who wanted simply to be Americans, and we cannot forget the humanity God commands of us as we seek a remedy to this problem. Over 200 illegal immigrants died in Arizona last year. We have a chance this year to prevent such terrible tragedies from occurring in the numbers they have occurred in the past. Let's do it. For the sake of security, justice, prosperity and humanity, let us do it.
"The United States of America, the greatest experiment in human history - powerful, prosperous, industrious, inventive, striving, madly in love with liberty, hopeful, generous and good - has been the ideal of my life. I have always loved her, but it wasn't until I lost America for a time that I realized how much I love her.


"I loved what I missed most from my life at home: my family and friends; the sights and sounds of my country; sports; music, information; the endless variety of American life; our hustle and purposefulness: our fervid independence; our hopefulness; and our confidence that we could make of our industry and talents a better life than we had begun, a better country than we had inherited.


"I missed all of it, very much, but I still carried her ideals in the habits of my heart. And because they were all I possessed of my country, I cherished them all the more. I cherished the honor of being a citizen of a country that was the last, best hope of mankind, the great refuge of those who sought escape from despair and tyranny on crowded, miserable steamers into New York harbor, on small rafts across the Florida Straits, and on foot across the punishing deserts of the southwest. I know why people want to come here. I once thought I would rather die than be denied my country for one more day.


"I want us to seize this opportunity to secure our borders, and change our immigration laws to meet the demands of our security, economy and values. I don't want to use the issue to make it easier for me to be President. I'm not running to do the easy things. So, I defend with no reservation our proposal to offer the people who harvest our crops, tend our gardens, work in our restaurants, care for our children and clean our homes a chance to be legal citizens of this country. They will have to earn it. They must come out from the shadows, pay their penalties, fees and taxes, stay employed, obey our laws, learn our language and history, and go to the back of the line and wait years for the privilege of being an American.


"Riayan Tejeda immigrated to New York from the Dominican Republic. He came with two dreams, he said, to become an American citizen and to serve in the United States Marine Corps. He willingly accepted the obligations of American citizenship before he possessed all the rights of an American. Staff Sergeant Tejada, from Washington Heights, New York by way of the Dominican Republic, the father of two young daughters, died in an ambush in Baghdad on April 11, 2003. He had never fulfilled his first dream to become a naturalized American citizen. But he loved his country so much he gave his life to defend her. Right now, at this very moment, there are fighting for us in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers who are not yet American citizens, or whose parents are not, but who have dreamed the dream, and have risked everything for it. They make me proud to share this country with them. They are my countrymen, and I am theirs.
"They came to grasp the lowest rung of the ladder of opportunity, and they intend to rise. Let them rise. Let them rise. We will be the better for it. Our America -blessed, bountiful, and beautiful - is the land of hope and opportunity, the land of the immigrant's dream. Long may she remain so."