LEFT: Representative William Jefferson, (D-LA) who does not live in the poor black part of New Orleans and is facing an FBI probe, commandeered a few Louisiana National Guardsmen and their vehicles is a desperate attempt to secure incriminating documents left in his better-than-bourgeois digs. (Thanks to the conservatives' favorite serial adulterer for the heads up on this one.)
Amid the chaos and confusion that engulfed New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina struck, a congressman used National Guard troops to check on his property and rescue his personal belongings — even while New Orleans residents were trying to get rescued from rooftops, ABC News has learned.
On Sept. 2 — five days after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast — Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., who represents New Orleans and is a senior member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, was allowed through the military blockades set up around the city to reach the Superdome, where thousands of evacuees had been taken.
Military sources tells ABC News that Jefferson, an eight-term Democratic congressman, asked the National Guard that night to take him on a tour of the flooded portions of his congressional district. A 5-ton military truck and a half dozen military police were dispatched.
Lt. Col. Pete Schneider of the Louisiana National Guard tells ABC News that during the tour, Jefferson asked that the truck take him to his home on Marengo Street, in the affluent uptown neighborhood in his congressional district. According to Schneider, this was not part of Jefferson's initial request.
Jefferson defended the expedition, saying he set out to see how residents were coping at the Superdome and in his neighborhood. He also insisted that he did not ask the National Guard to transport him.
"I did not seek the use of military assets to help me get around my city," Jefferson told ABC News. "There was shooting going on. There was sniping going on. They thought I should be escorted by some military guards, both to the convention center, the Superdome and uptown."
The water reached to the third step of Jefferson's house, a military source familiar with the incident told ABC News, and the vehicle pulled up onto Jefferson's front lawn so he wouldn't have to walk in the water. Jefferson went into the house alone, the source says, while the soldiers waited on the porch for about an hour.
More from 2theadvocate.com in Baton Rouge:
Military sources say that Jefferson used a National Guard escort to retrieve personal belongings from his flooded home, and when the large vehicle became stuck on his front lawn, the escorts motioned to a helicopter rescue crew flying overhead. On seeing the commotion on the ground, the crew thought Jefferson was trapped in his home and attempted to retrieve him from the house by lowering a diver to the congressman's second-story balcony.
Jefferson is being criticized for his actions, not only for the use of government resources, but also because there were still many people on their rooftops in need of rescue -- people who could have been saved while the crew was focused on the congressman. Jefferson maintains that he did nothing wrong.
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