Quotes du jour

I am very concerned about the necessity of a Saturday night raid on Congressman Jefferson’s Capitol Hill Office in pursuit of information that was already under subpoena and at a time when those subpoenas are still pending and all the documents that have been subpoenaed were being preserved.

The Founding Fathers were very careful to establish in the Constitution a Separation of Powers to protect Americans against the tyranny of any one branch of government. They were particularly concerned about limiting the power of the Executive Branch.

Insofar as I am aware, since the founding of our Republic 219 years ago, the Justice Department has never found it necessary to do what it did Saturday night, crossing this Separation of Powers line, in order to successfully prosecute corruption by Members of Congress... Nothing I have learned in the last 48 hours leads me to believe there was any necessity to change the precedent established over those 219 years.

-- Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL)

What happened Saturday night... is the most blatant violation of the Constitutional Separation of Powers in my lifetime... I am shaken by this abuse of power.

-- Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA)

I think this is really outrageous.

-- Rep. David Dreier (R-CA)

The WSWS investigates the raid of Congressman William Jefferson's (D-LA) office by the FBI Saturday night. My question is--now that these Repugs have noticed the unconstitutional behavior of the administration, this "high crime," in other words, are they ready to take the only reasonable action that could stop it: impeachment?

Meanwhile, Torture Gonzales continues to do the seemingly impossible--make us miss John Ashcroft:

Defending the raid in response to the outcry from members of the Senate and House, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Monday would only say, "I admit that these were unusual steps that were taken in response to an unusual set of circumstances." On Tuesday he claimed that his office had decided the search of Jefferson's office was "absolutely essential to move forward with that investigation."