The Washington Times came out yesterday with an editorial calling for Republican Dennis Hastert's resignation as House Speaker.
Late yesterday afternoon, Mr. Hastert insisted that he learned of the most flagrant instant-message exchange from 2003 only last Friday, when it was reported by ABC News. This is irrelevant. The original e-mail messages were warning enough that a predator -- and, incredibly, the co-chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children -- could be prowling the halls of Congress.
Today Tony Blankley's Washington Times column calls once again for the Speaker's resignation and he explains why.
In this case, defending Denny Hastert's decisions is ethically wrong, would undermine our party's commitment to the defense of traditional moral values and is politically stupid in the bargain.
I have known Denny for almost two decades. He is an exceedingly decent man and a hard worker for conservative Republican values and politics. But we cannot deny the fact that he had a sustained lapse of good judgment.
To say Hastert had a lapse of good judgment is overly kind and euphemistic. And it's not his first lapse of good judgment as House Speaker.
In a rare bipartisan action, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi demanded yesterday that the Justice Department immediately return documents that were seized when federal agents raided the office of Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.) as part of a bribery probe.
You may recall that William J. Jefferson is the Louisiana Democrat who was filmed taking cash from an FBI wired Northern Virginia investor, and in whose freezer was found $90,000 in cash wrapped in aluminum foil. It was over this that Mr. Hastert decided a bipartisan stand was in order. Fortunately, Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan disagreed with Hastert and Pelosi and said so with unmistakable clarity.
Hogan acknowledged the "unprecedented" nature of the case. But he said the lawmakers' "sweeping" theory of legislative privilege "would have the effect of converting every congressional office into a taxpayer-subsidized sanctuary for crime."
[...]
The House leaders told Hogan in a court filing that the Justice Department had overstepped its authority by prohibiting Jefferson's private lawyer, House counsel and the Capitol Police from observing the search of Jefferson's office.
They also complained that agents showed up at the Rayburn Office Building unannounced and demanded that the Capitol Police chief let them into Jefferson's office immediately or they would "pick the office door lock."
Hogan said investigators do not need approval from elected officials or their lawyers to seize possible proof of a crime.
"The power to determine the scope of one's own privilege is not available to any other person, including members of the coequal branches of government: federal judges ... or the President of the United States," the judge said.
He also said judges have a legitimate role to play in ensuring prosecutors don't overstep their authority in investigating legislators.
"A federal judge is not a mere rubber stamp in the warrant process," Hogan wrote, "but rather an independent and neutral official sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution."
I wouldn't agree that either of these errors in judgment constitutes a lapse on Hastert's part. What you see is what you get. No doubt he still respectfully disagrees with the Judge Hogan over the the search of Jefferson's office, so I'd say a lapse would be if he somehow slipped up and exercised good judgment. For anybody wondering how it is the Republicans so frequently manage to shoot themselves in the foot, Dennis Hastert your poster boy.
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