Jefferson makes second court appearance

Prosecutors and attorneys for Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) faced off in an Alexandria, Va. courtroom Friday over his defense team’s motions to drop conspiracy and bribery charges against the lawmaker.

{mosads}Judge T.S. Ellis III of the Eastern District of Virginia listened to passionate arguments from both sides, frequently interjecting with withering reprimands, comments and questions for the prosecution and the defense, but recessed the hearing without issuing any decisions.

Jefferson was on hand for the proceedings, his first court appearance since his indictment in early June on multiple counts of bribery and corruption stemming from business deals in Africa. While Jefferson acknowledges that he made “mistakes along the way” that he deeply regrets, he denies the charges, insisting that he did not sell or trade official acts for money and did not bribe a foreign official as alleged. Two men, including former Jefferson aide Brett Pfeffer, have already pleaded guilty in the case and are cooperating with federal prosecutors.

In this latest court appearance, the lawmaker declined to comment on the proceedings or the case against him. When asked whether Jefferson planned to make regular appearances at all the court hearings in the case, his attorney, Robert Trout, said only: “We’ll have to see about that.”

The courtroom arguments were far more colorful and verbose. Amy Jackson, one of Jefferson’s attorneys, likened two of the government’s conspiracy charges to a “rimless wheel,” arguing that the different financial arrangements Jefferson allegedly set up were similar but not connected, which she said is necessary to meet the legal precedent for conspiracy. While they may have a common hub, i.e. Jefferson, and several different spokes representing the various alleged schemes, there was “no overlap of participants,” she said.

“There is no allegation that these various businesses had anything to do with each other,” she stated.

Ellis interrupted several times during Jackson’s argument, at one point instructing her to drop the rhetoric because “it doesn’t help much,” and at another to tell her to stop talking when he starts speaking.

“When I speak you have to cease. You need to pay attention to what I don’t understand,” he said.

Charles Duross, a prosecutor, responded to the defense’s arguments by saying that the indictment did not include all of the evidence the government has to show how the co-conspirators were connected to one another. Duross argued that the government would prove “extreme interdependence,” that conspiracy was a “coherent, logical and interrelated and mutually beneficial scheme.”

Jackson, the defense attorney, also argued that the bribery charges did not meet the legal holding of several precedent-setting cases because Jefferson was not acting an official capacity  but instead as a private businessman so there was no “official act” involved.

She said the bribery statute defines bribery as an exchange of something of value for an official act, and in this case, Jefferson’s travel, conversations and influence in helping various companies win government grants and entrance into the Nigerian marketplace, did not meet the legal standard.

Among several cases, Jackson cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1999 that the government must prove that an official act is linked to a public official’s acceptance of a “thing of value.”

That case involved Sun Diamond Growers’ illegal gifts to then-Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Espy’s favor because the government was unable to show that Espy provided an “official act” in exchange for the expensive gifts he received.

The judge, however, appeared skeptical. At one point, he interrupted, asking whether a member of Congress who calls the immigration naturalization service to speed a constituent’s citizenship application would be committing bribery if he took $100,000 from that constituent to do so.

“Why isn’t that an action or act?” Ellis asked.

While such a scenario very well could trigger an ethics investigation and constitute a violation of House rules, Jackson said it would not meet the statutory requirements for bribery because the act was constituent services and not legislative in nature.

Prosecutor Mark Lytle strenuously disagreed, arguing that there is no more official act than congressional constituent services, citing a different interpretation of some of the same cases as Jackson referred to in her argument.

“It’s the bread and butter,” of a congressman’s job, he said.

To drive home the point, prosecutors read from several pages on Jefferson’s official House website, including this line: “The most important thing we do is provide constituent services.”

Jefferson’s attorneys also are asking the judge to dismiss most of the charges on the grounds that the Department of Justice (DOJ) violated his constitutional privilege under the Speech and Debate Clause when they asked several Jefferson aides about legislative matters when building their case against him.

The defense team also has sought to have Jefferson’s statements to FBI agents on the day they raided his home suppressed, and to have evidence seized from his home and congressional office excluded from trial. Jefferson and the DOJ are in an appeals court battle over the constitutionality of the 2006 raid of his congressional office.