What is this crap? A Democratic scandel in New Orleans? Sh*t!

[orleans]

i heard this on tweety's show tonight.

grrrr.

"Former Aide's Guilty Plea Implicates Congressman"

"Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.) sought bribes, jobs for his children and other favors for providing political support to a company setting up Internet service in Nigeria, according to a former aide's guilty plea, entered Wednesday in federal court in Alexandria, Va.

In an alleged conspiracy, beginning in 2004, Jefferson, in exchange for providing political help, demanded payments and favors from a northern Virginia company that was proposing to set up Internet service through the Nigerian Telephone Co., according to the guilty plea by Brett M. Pfeffer of Herndon, Va., to charges of aiding and abetting bribery of a public official and conspiracy."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-corrupt12jan12,0,743105.story?coll=la-news-politics-national

[MadisonProgressive]

1. Apparently a DINO

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. setting up Internet service in Nigeria

be like flypaper for those seeking to corrupt... too bad his name isn't DICK so he can "just make it go away".

http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/shareholder2004.html
Nigeria bribery probe: The U.S. Department of Justice is conducting a criminal investigation into an alleged $180 million bribe paid by Halliburton and three other companies to the government of Nigeria. The alleged bribe was paid in exchange for awarding a contract to the companies to build a $4 billion natural gas plant in Nigeria's southern delta region. The bribes were paid during the time when Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission opened its own formal investigation on June 11, 2004. Click here for a chronology of events in the bribery case.


Nigeria bribery probe: The French government is conducting an investigation of the same Nigeria bribery allegations as the U.S. Justice Department. France is also investigating a former Halliburton executive for his role in the scheme. Investigators said $5 million of the bribes intended for Nigeria was deposited into the Swiss bank account of former KBR chairman, Jack Stanley, who retired from the company on December 31, 2003.


The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating a second bribery case involving Nigeria. Halliburton admitted that its employees paid a $2.4 million bribe to a government official of Nigeria for the purpose of receiving favorable tax treatment.


The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating allegations that the Army Corp of Engineers illegally favored Halliburton for contracts by excluding competitors from bidding on war-related work. In particular, the FBI is investigating the Army's $7 billion firefighting contract for Iraqi oil wells, which was awarded to Halliburton without competition in March of 2003. An Army whistleblower told the FBI that the line between government officials and Halliburton had become so blurred that a perception of conflict of interest existed. The conduct appears to have violated specific regulations and calls into question the independence of the contracting process.

[Rose Siding]

3. A TPM post says this aide also lobbied for the bushbots-

Maybe Jefferson isn't the only fish in this net:

(January 11, 2006 -- 01:55 PM EST // link)
A bit earlier we told you how one of Rep. Bill Jefferson's (D-LA) former staffers, Brett Pfeffer, is pleading guilty today to charges of bribing public officials in a federal court in Northern, Virginia. One of our favorite TPM Readers sends us in this note ...

Josh-- Brett Pfeffer was president of MorganFranklin Corp., whose clients include the Executive Office of the President and DoD, among others.
Among their projects have been the IT infrastructure for Bush's 2d inaugural and technical support to the 2004 G8 Summit hosted by Bush last year.

Also worth noting that MorganFranklin's lobbyists are a couple of Republicans from Dutko.

Can't tell yet when Pfeffer's gig there ended. I'll keep you posted.


We'll keep you posted too.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007413.php

[Poppyseedman]

4. I know it may be hard to believe, but there are dirty Dems

No matter what political stripe a scum sucking dirty politician is, they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

I mean 100 dirty rethugs to a couple dirty Dems is bound to happen.

[orleans]

8. good point. i'm still disappointed. i was hoping all would be

perfectly well with us. at least it's not a jack-abram-off thing.

[DocSavage]

5. After having lived

in New Orleans for some time, the thought of a corrupt politician just shocks me I tell you, just shocks me.

[Common Sense Party]

6. Yeah, such a squeaky clean image down there.

I'm so sick of corrupt greedy Democrats and corrupt, greedy Republicans. They should all be hung out to dry.

I'm all for one-term limits for everyone. Screw the professional pols. They don't represent me.

[quaoar]

9. Ah yes, the good ole days

when Edwin Edwards was still in charge.

My favorite Edwards story was when he took a suitcase stuffed with cash to Vegas to pay a gambling debt and was shocked that anyone thought that was unseemly.

[AtomicKitten]

7. New Orleans has a reputation of being a cesspool.

Time to clear out all cheesy Democrats. There is no room for them in the party if they can't act right.
We can not maintain the moral high ground when we have Dems that act as bad as Republicans.

And any Republican crowing over this has NO room to talk. They are in such serious deep shit themselves.