Legalised Corruption

You gotta love a country which legalises aspects of political corruption. My attention has been drawn to a couple of strange anomalies of late. Today’s example is the announcement that former Wisconsin state Sen. Brian Burke, six months in jail and required to pay $75,000 in restitution to the state can pay the money out of his ill gotten gains.
Now your average ‘garden variety’ criminal usually have the earnings from their crimes confiscated before they can even blink. Pollies and corporate cons, on the other hand, are allowed to use proceeds of their crime against and financial judgement. That should discourage them…
The National Capital has an interesting dilemma with its lobbyists. The recent plea bargaining of Michael Scanlon has thrown the spotlight on the laws which [protect lawmakers from corruption prosecution.An article in Bloomberg asserts: “Scanlon's testimony may allow the government to overcome a defense based on the ‘speech and debate’ clause of the Constitution, which protects lawmakers from being prosecuted for legislation they introduce or speeches they make in Congress, Cole and other experts said. Scanlon may be able to testify about deals between lawmakers and lobbyists; such quid pro quos wouldn't be protected by the Constitution.
The speech and debate clause only prevents you from using a legislative act'' as evidence, Cole said. "The agreement is the crime.”
Yup, unless prosecutors can prove that there was an actual agreement made, regardless of other evidence of corruption being committed, they cannot proceed.
The Bloomberg continued… Says Stephen Saltzburg, a law professor at George Washington University in Washington: “It is not going to be easy for the government to nail members of Congress. It is very difficult to decide where the lines are between ordinary campaign contributions that get you access and illegal gratuities and bribes.”
The 35 to 40 investigators and prosecutors on the Abramoff case are focused on at least half a dozen members of Congress. The investigators are looking at payments made by Abramoff and his colleagues to the wives of some lawmakers and at actions taken by senior Capitol Hill aides, some of whom went to work for Abramoff at the law firm Greenberg Traurig LLP But it will take some very precisely aimed testimony from Scanlon to make any of thee charges stick.

The moral of the story: Don’t be surprised at the carnage when you put the fox in charge of the hen house. While politicians have a monopoly on laws covering ethics and public corruption, they will err well and truly on the side of caution. Or to put it more bluntly, protect the ability to plunder the public purse at will.