House is Late in Investigating Jefferson. Why? Democrat Party Cover.

Steven Taylor, over at OTB notes a Reuters feed:

The House of Representatives, prodded by Republicans, voted on Tuesday to possibly consider expelling indicted Democratic Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana before he even stands trial.On a bipartisan vote of 373-26, the Democratic-led House approved a resolution directing its ethics committee to investigate federal bribery charges against Jefferson and recommend whether the nine-term lawmaker should be removed from Congress.

Only five members of the House have been expelled in the past 150 years.

Not surprising, if a little quick. Still, if the NFL can seek to suspend players for poor behavior sans a criminal conviction, it isn’t beyond the pale that the Congress would investigate (and perhaps expel) one of it members before a conviction, depending on the nature of the evidence.

I respond in the comments, there:

A little quick?  I think not.
Look, Pelosi has been trying to squash this investigation for the last six months. The prevailing view within Congress has been that this investigation should have been started quite some time ago. With the indictment, Pelosi no longer has cover for her squashing attempts, and the prevailing view of the body of Congress, can go forward.

Of course, it should be noted, that the reasoning behind the prevailing view of the body of Congress, is fairly well split between Democrats wanting/needing to cut their losses, and Republicans wanting to apply the consequences of Jefferson’s actions and democrat in action about Jefferson, to the forthcoming election.

And of course in a world which measures speed of action by when the investigation actually starts, Pelosi can say she acted quickly, and decisively.

It should also be noted, that while the vote was 373 to 26, that thirteen members voted “present”, effectively voting against the measure to investigate Jefferson. That’s 39 members, gang, not 26.
Personally, I’d like Jefferson to stay in office as long as possible. If nothing else, he is effective in the role of a millstone around the necks of congressional Democrats.

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I will say, that I’m looking for a list of who those people are. If any of our readers have a link to such a list, post it here please.   I’m willing to bet, that every single one of them, is a Democrat.

Meantime, as for Jefferson himself, it interests me that the defense that seems to be evolving over the matter, takes on an amazing resemblance to the defense of  another denizen of Washington DC.  Namely, “The bitch set me up”.

Since we are talking about a Democrat here, I suppose it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the immediate response is that his actions are somebody else’s fault.  The pattern, however, is worth noting, if for no other reason than more firmly establishing the relationship between such excuses and what passes for normalcy among Democrats.