Why is DOJ Backing Off Congress?

Prosecuting public officials for wrongdoing is rarely easy. These cases invariably trigger claims that they are politically motivated and prosecutors may find themselves under heavy pressure to back off. That pressure may come not just from elected and appointed public officials, but from powerful private sector actors implicated in the cases. In addition, the bar can be pretty high to prove wrongdoing beyond a reasonable doubt and the Department of Justice suffered a stinging setback in 2009 when its case against Alaska Senator Ted Stevens collapsed. 

So maybe it is no surprise that DOJ is backing off several cases where it had investigated wrongdoing by members of Congress. Federal prosecutors recently chose not to go after Nevada Senator John Ensign in a scandal involving a former aide or Jerry Lewis, a Republican from California, who had been investigated for helping campaign donors win government contracts. 

In a recent New York Times article, J. Gerald Hebert,  executive director of the Campaign Legal Center, criticized DOJ saying “They’re gun-shy." A top DOJ official, Lanny Breuer, shot back that "It's just not the case that anyone is gun-shy." Breuer said: “If a case cannot be brought, it’s because we’ve taken a hard look and made the determination that this case cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. And with all due respect to those outside the department, they haven’t seen the evidence. They don’t know the materials, and we’ve looked at it all.”

Peter Zeidenberg, a former prosecutor, probably captured the subtle truth in between: “I don’t think there is any question that the decision to charge a sitting member of Congress is going to get far more scrutiny and it’s going to be agonized over by a lot more people,” said Zeidenberg.

In other words, it may be easier to get away with crimes if you're a member of Congress because the stakes are higher for those who might come after you. That logic explains help how a senator like Ted Stevens -- who was almost certainly guilty of various charges -- could be so blithely arrogant in abusing the public trust. 

Congressional Black Foundation Hit With Two Scandals

In the span of just over a week, two members of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation have been caught awarding family members with college scholarships through the organization. Last week, Texas house member Eddie Bernice Johnson announced that she would repay $31,000 after the Dallas Morning News revealed that she had directed the Foundation's funds to her own relatives and the children of a top aide. On top of that, Johnson dished out five additional scholarships to students who neither lived in her district or in a district of any of her fellow CBCF members, a clear violation of the rules.

Yesterday, The New York Times reported that Georgia Representative Stanford D. Bishop Jr. had agreed to give back an amount equal to the scholarships that he donated to his step-daughter, niece (twice) and a woman who would later become the wife of one of his top aides. According to Bishop, rules prohibiting Foundation fund's from going to lawmakers' relatives were not in place before he issued the awards. It is difficult, however, to understand why that matters. He is a U.S. Congressman - a recommendation letter is enough to get a kid into a top college, and probably good enough to get a few scholarships thrown in as well.

These two egregious abuses of power should not, unfortunately, come as much of a surprise in a world where are politicans are responsible for so many organizations and decisions that the temptation to cheat now weighs on them harder than ever. With so many committees, foundations and corporations splashing cash around, small slices of profit can be cut from the system here and there at a relatively low price for anyone involved. In these two cases, we have two politicians who more than likely ignored all other candidates and took advantage of a highly respected organization's coffers to enrich the lives of their own family members. Look, for example, at how Johnson had responded when pressed with questions about her scholarship decisions:

"I recognized the names when I saw them. And I knew that they had a need just like any other kid that would apply for one." Had there been more "very worthy applicants in my district," she added, "then I probably wouldn't have given it" to the relatives.

The price involved, however, are the students who deserved that money who were unfortunate enough not to have been born a relative of a congressmen and may now be struggling as a result of those lost funds.

Like all good politicians, Johnson, in response to her own violations of scholarship distribution, has announced that she is creating a panel to deal with, you guessed it, screening the scholarship application process. If only it had not come after the fact.