{"id":2055,"date":"2005-11-21T18:07:30","date_gmt":"2005-11-21T22:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.test.bradblog.com\/?p=2055"},"modified":"2005-11-21T18:07:30","modified_gmt":"2005-11-21T22:07:30","slug":"doj-signals-gop-corruption-probe-could-be-huge-says-ny-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=2055","title":{"rendered":"DoJ &#8216;Signals&#8217; GOP Corruption Probe Could Be Huge, Says NY Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I didn&#8217;t get to read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2005\/11\/20\/politics\/20lobby.html?ei=5088&#038;en=b7550c05e3dd13b0&#038;ex=1290142800&#038;partner=rssnyt&#038;emc=rss&#038;pagewanted=all\">this <i>NY Times<\/i> article<\/a> from Saturday until just now. Gentelmen&#8230;start your shredders&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"media\">The Justice Department has signaled for the first time in recent weeks that prominent members of Congress could be swept up in the corruption investigation of Jack Abramoff<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\nThe investigation by a federal grand jury, which began more than a year ago, has created alarm on Capitol Hill, especially with the announcement Friday of criminal charges against Michael Scanlon, Mr. Abramoff&#8217;s former lobbying partner and a former top House aide to Representative Tom DeLay.<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\nScholars who specialize in the history and operations of Congress say that given the brazenness of Mr. Abramoff&#8217;s lobbying efforts, as measured by the huge fees he charged clients and the extravagant gifts he showered on friends on Capitol Hill, almost all of them Republicans, the investigation could end up costing several lawmakers their careers, if not their freedom.<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\n<b>&#8220;I think this has the potential to be the biggest scandal in Congress in over a century,&#8221;<\/b> said Thomas E. Mann, a Congressional specialist at the Brookings Institution.<\/div>\n<p>But before anybody gets too excited about all of this, remember: this word is coming out of the <i>Bush<\/i> Justice Dept. which means it will all depend on who gets ahold of the case &#8212; the crime-fighting career professionals or the Bush appointees. Notice this passage from the same article:<\/p>\n<div class=\"media\">Richard Cullen, a lawyer for Mr. DeLay, said in an interview Friday that he was &#8220;glad that the Justice Department is looking into all aspects of the trip because I think that a thorough investigation will show that the trip was substantive and transparent.&#8221;<\/div>\n<p>Given just some of <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/archives\/00002032.htm\">what we already know<\/a> about the corruption and cronyism at DoJ and their willingness to follow the marching orders from above, it would be little surprise if Cullen&#8217;s &#8220;prediction&#8221; comes to pass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I didn&#8217;t get to read this NY Times article from Saturday until just now. Gentelmen&#8230;start your shredders&#8230; The Justice Department has signaled for the first time in recent weeks that prominent members of Congress could be swept up in the corruption investigation of Jack Abramoff &#8230; The investigation by a federal grand jury, which began [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2055"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=2055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}