The Justice Department bribery investigation of Democrat Louisiana congressman William Jefferson was temporarily delayed when two judges on a federal appellate court panel issued an injunction temporarily barring the examination of computer records and paper documents taken from the Congressman's office during a May raid by the FBI.Judges Janice Rogers Brown and Thomas B. Griffith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit wrote "The purpose of this administrative injunction is to give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the merits of the motion for a stay pending appeal and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion." The identity of the third appellate judge is not known.
We previously reported on Clarice Feldman's article on the Joe Wilson connection here.
4 comments:
That's very interesting - did they grab the case or was it assigned? Will we be seeing some land speed records at the appellate level?
Finally - isn't there precedent for acting expeditiously when the matter in question may affect an election? Jefferson is still on the ballot and I would think that his arrest and arraignment might be of some interest to LA voters. Perhaps not enough to keep him from being elected but enough so that they would understand that he won't be serving out his full term. Full sentence, perhaps, but not full term.
There isn't enough info in the article to be certain, but I don't think this changes anything. As I noted in the article DoJ had earlier announced when Hogan refused to stay his decision that it would voluntarily refrain from looking at the documents until August 27. I expect the Court will treat this expeditiously because of the nature of the case and its significance.
BTW with these 2 judges on the panel, I wouldn't bet on a Jefferson victory.
CF, I think you're right that it doesn't change anything. The two named judges do not bode well for Jefferson. But the story gave me the opportunity to demonstrate the principle that a picture is worth a thousand words.
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