I was just reading through the FBI’s search warrant affidavit, which the FBI released today – it details their very considerable case against Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) – and I really can’t decide which part is the most damning.
Is it when Jefferson admits to the cooperating witness (a businesswoman named Lori Mody) that he’s just sticking around in Congress long enough to make sure that he gets his cut on a Nigerian telecom deal? Or as Jefferson puts it: “I’m gonna get your deal out of the way… and I probably won’t last long after that.”
Or is it when Jefferson heaps praise on a Nigerian businessman by saying he’s got “more deals going than the goddamn man in the moon,” adding: “He’s a very, well, the word might be… corrupt,” but then recommends that Mody bring him in on the deal?
Or is it when Jefferson colorfully describes how another Nigerian businessman might play a role in the deal by greasing some of the local officials’ palms? To quote:
…But we need him. We got to motivate him really good. He’s got a lot of folks to pay off…. He’s gotta, if he’s gotta pay Minister X, we don’t want to know. It’s not our deal. We’re not paying Minister X a damn thing. That’s all, you know, international fraud crap. We’re not doing that…. Whatever they do locally, that’s their business.
Or is it when Jefferson describes how his cut of the deal is going to his children to keep his name out of it? Again, from the horse’s mouth: “I wouldn’t show up in there…. I make a deal for my children.”
Or is it where Jefferson suggests to Mody that they could bribe the Vice President of Nigeria (his name is blacked out in the document, but he’s been subsequently identified) through his foundation, which Jefferson describes as a “front?”
Well, of course, there is, as I mentioned before, the hand-off in the Ritz-Carlton’s parking lot of the $100,000 in cash, which was to be used to bribe the Nigerian Vice President. That doesn’t look good.
And then there’s the codespeak. When Mody asks whether Jefferson handed the money off to the Nigerian VP, Jefferson, apparently cagey about saying anything explicit, says “I gave him the African art you gave me and he was very pleased.”
And really, the most damning detail of all is that Jefferson evidently lied to Mody when he said he’d paid off the Nigerian VP. In reality, the cash (or $90,000 of it) was in his freezer, in “frozen food containers and wrapped in aluminum foil,” when the FBI raided his house two days later. In other words, not only was Jefferson apparently involved in a bribery scheme, but he didn’t even play that cleanly – he swindled his partner and pocketed bribe money intended for someone else.
So – what’s your vote? Read for yourself.
