Rep. John Doolittle (R-'alleged' crook) will not resign seat

(until he's forced to?:shrug: )

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/17109913.htm

Doolittle will not resign seat
By David Whitney
McClatchy Newspapers

* FBI raids home of California congressman
* Congressman stepping down temporarily from committee seat after FBI raids his home

Rep. John Doolittle, in measured but defiant terms, said Friday that he will not resign his House seat and will battle the federal government if it brings charges of political corruption in connection with his and wife Julie’s relationship with convicted super lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

The California Republican also said that he is forming a legal defense fund to pay his mounting legal costs.

The Doolittles’ house in Oakton, Va., was raided a week ago by FBI agents who seized three computers and two large file cabinets where the business records of his wife’s company, Sierra Dominion Financial Solutions, were kept. Doolittle said much of his wife’s business is bookkeeping and that the raid essentially put her out of business during the weekend crunch before the April 17 tax filing deadline.

Doolittle said he was in California when the raid occurred and that his wife was the only person at home at the time. He said she was treated courteously. But he refused to say whether she was scarred by the intrusion, indicating he will have much more to say about the raid and the federal investigation in the next several weeks.

While Doolittle said he did not think the raid was necessary because Julie Doolittle had been fully cooperative, he said he hopes it puts to rest any concerns that she was “paid for real work.”

Doolittle’s comments, delivered in a regularly scheduled telephone press conference with California reporters, came after he stepped down from the House Appropriations Committee following the raid on his house and disclosures that a former aide who went to work for Abramoff, Kevin Ring, had suddenly resigned his lobbying job about the same time the Doolittles’ house was being raided.

The two events have been widely regarded as the opening of a new stage in the Abramoff probe.

“I assure you there will be more interesting things to come in the future,” Doolittle said in prefacing a prepared statement cleared by his criminal defense attorney, David Barger.

“As difficult as the events of the last week have been, I do believe the events that have transpired will bring more immediately closure to the events that have transpired,” Doolittle said.

even Republicans.

She had zeroed in on him and he complained to rove that she was getting too close. So she was let go.

Echoes of Cunningham. Soon we shall see him weeping for the evening news.