Fact: Michael Scanlon, Jack Abramoff’s former partner and former top aide to Rep. Tom DeLay (Rep., TX) pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe a Congressman.
Fact: Rep. Bob Ney (Rep., Ohio) accepted gifts from Abramoff.
Fact: Rep. Randy Cunningham (R., CA) admitted he took bribes.
And the Wall Street Journal says the Justice Department is investigating Abramoff’s dealings with other members of Congress, many of them from the GOP.
It follows, right, that the Justice Department will pursue these cases with vigor.
I am not so sure. In fact, I suspect otherwise. The Attorney General is, after all, a presidential pal of long duration. Also, he’s the brain who wrote a memo giving legal wiggle-room to torturers at the Pentagon and CIA.
And Watergate, where the cover-up involved the Attorney General, wasn’t that long ago.
Yet I have seen no suggestion in any coverage of the burgeoning scandals that the Justice Department will do less than its duty.
Faith-based journalism, again.
In fairness, we all tend to assume that our institutions are trustworthy until we are shown evidence to the contrary. That’s human, not just journalistic, nature.
Reporters, however, are supposed to exercise skepticism, not faith.