On 30 July 2005, Jefferson was videotaped by the FBI receiving $100,000 worth of $100 bills in a leather briefcase at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Arlington, Virginia.[9] Jefferson told an investor, Lori Mody, who was wearing a wire, that he would need to give Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar $500,000 "as a motivating factor" to make sure they obtained contracts for iGate and Mody's company in Nigeria.[10]
New Orleans Mardi Gras float satirizing "Dollar" Bill Jefferson
A few days later, on 3 August 2005, FBI agents raided Jefferson's home in Northeast Washington and, as noted in an 83-page affidavit filed to support a subsequent raid on his Congressional office, "found $90,000 of the cash in the freezer, in $10,000 increments wrapped in aluminum foil and stuffed inside frozen-food containers." Serial numbers found on the currency in the freezer matched serial numbers of funds given by the FBI to their informant.
Late on the night of 20 May 2006, FBI agents executed a search warrant[11] at Jefferson's office in the Rayburn House Office Building. This is "believed to be the first-ever FBI raid on a Congressional office,"[12] raising concerns that it could "set a dangerous precedent that could be used by future administrations to intimidate or harass a supposedly coequal branch of the government."[13]
Despite this, Jefferson was re-elected. This might have been due to the fact that the district "was specifically drawn to give African-Americans an electoral advantage and one in which two of every three voters are registered Democrats." This naturally make Congressman Cao's victory all the more interesting.
I also not the current happenings in Louisiana's election since Katrina. Perhaps the inept response to Katrina by the established political class of Louisiana, long known for its corrupt ways, was the final straw. Since then, Bobby Jindal has been elected as America's first Indian-American governor. Cao's election appears to represent a similar dissatisfaction with corrupt politics as usual in the Bayou.
HT: Powerline
