Ethics Panel Defers to Prosecutors, Suspends Jefferson Probe

[Ron Burgundy]

CQPolitics.com - Responding to a Justice Department request, a House ethics panel has suspended its investigation into allegations of criminal misconduct on the part of indicted Rep. William J. Jefferson, D-La.

The investigative subcommittee charged with determining whether Jefferson should be expelled from Congress “has voted to refrain at this time from attempting to interview or depose witnesses linked to the criminal proceedings” involving Jefferson, according to a statement posted Aug. 3 on the House ethics committee’s Web site. It is customary for the committee to defer to prosecutors when requested to do so regarding an active criminal case.

A federal grand jury indicted Jefferson June 4 on 16 corruption charges, including soliciting bribes, racketeering, money laundering, obstruction of justice, wire fraud, conspiracy and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The nine-term Democrat, who has maintained he is innocent, is accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for helping to broker business deals in Africa.

The ethics panel, known officially as the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, on June 7 impaneled a four-member investigative subcommittee led by former prosecutor Bill Delahunt, D-Mass.

According to the ethics committee’s posted statement, the investigative subcommittee decided unanimously to suspend the probe at the urging of the Justice Department, which expressed concern that its investigation would interfere with the pending criminal case.

“The investigative subcommittee concluded that it cannot move forward with this matter at this time without engaging in investigative activities that would risk interfering with the criminal prosecution and related ongoing investigation,” the committee’s statement said.

The subcommittee will “continue to monitor the criminal proceedings and will consider pursuing other avenues of inquiry that it concludes do not interfere with the criminal indictment.”

The charges against Jefferson center primarily on an alleged scheme to help a Kentucky-based telecommunications firm, iGate, land a contract with Nigeria worth millions of dollars. The lawmaker is accused of accepting more than $400,000 in payments in return for using his official position to promote a number of business ventures. He also is charged under the federal racketeering statute with misusing his office to promote those ventures through taxpayer-funded trips and other means.

The ethics committee had initiated a subcommittee probe of Jefferson in the 109th Congress, when federal investigators made public their allegations, including the discovery of $90,000 in the congressman’s freezer. The panel did not renew its efforts to investigate Jefferson in the current Congress until after he was indicted,

A federal appeals court ruled Aug. 3 that the FBI’s May, 2006 raid on Jefferson’s office in the House Rayburn Building improperly exposed legislative materials to executive review and ordered the return of some of the documents seized.

The Jefferson investigation, which began in March 2005 on a tip to the FBI, has led to a guilty plea from Vernon Jackson, the former head of iGate, and to former congressional aide Brett Pfeffer’s admission to soliciting bribes on Jefferson’s behalf.

Jefferson’s trial is set for Jan. 16.

This story originally appeared in CQ Today.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/20070806/pl_cq_politics/ethicspaneldeferstoprosecutorssuspendsjeffersonpro be [link]