I’m the first to strongly believe that people are innocent until proven guilty and, certainly, the F.B.I. has been known to accuse people of wrongdoing and/or spy on people over the years who actually did no wrong. BUT…the case against one of the CAFTA 15, Rep. William Jefferson, is certainly picking up speed.

The New York Times reports today on the raid on Jefferson’s home:

F.B.I. Contends Lawmaker Hid Bribe in Freezer
By PHILIP SHENON

WASHINGTON, May 21 — The F.B.I. accused Representative William J. Jefferson, Democrat of Louisiana, on Sunday of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from a Kentucky businessman and stashing $90,000 from the scheme in his home freezer in Washington.

The accusations appeared in court documents that were made public only hours after a team of 15 agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation completed an all-night search of Mr. Jefferson’s Congressional offices. F.B.I. officials said the raid, which began about 7:15 p.m. Saturday and ended early Sunday afternoon, was the first the agency had ever conducted at a lawmaker’s office on Capitol Hill.

The search warrant and other documents, which were unsealed in Federal District Court in Washington, accused Mr. Jefferson, an eight-term lawmaker, of accepting bribes to help a small technology company win contracts with federal agencies and with businesses and governments in West Africa. Mr. Jefferson, who has denied wrongdoing, is one of several members of Congress who are under scrutiny by the Justice Department on corruption charges.

While the outline of the case against Mr. Jefferson has been known for months, the court papers released Sunday were the first in which he was linked by name to the bribery charges and to iGate Inc., the Louisville company that sought his help in winning contracts for its high-tech products.

The documents revealed that many of Mr. Jefferson’s contacts with people involved in the bribery scheme were secretly taped, including a meeting last July at which the lawmaker received a briefcase containing $100,000 in $100 bills.

The F.B.I. said that $90,000 of that money was found in a raid on Mr. Jefferson’s Washington home last August, divided into $10,000 increments and placed in “various frozen food containers and wrapped in aluminum foil.” The court documents said the money was intended to pay a middleman — his name is blacked out in the court papers — who might help Mr. Jefferson secure contracts in Nigeria, an oil-rich nation plagued by government corruption.

A couple of thoughts. Congressman, you hide $90,000 in a freezer? Personally, I find that a less than creative place to hide $90K but I’ve never had to face that conundrum so what do I know.

More to the point, one reason I’ve felt that there is some credibility in the charges against Jefferson is that I don’t see it a big jump from voting for CAFTA–which was a gift to business and hurt average working people–to also taking bribes from some business. If you are one of 15 so-called Democrats who is willing to consign average people to more poverty and declining wages, it doesn’t seem to me to be a far reach in the make-up of a person to look for an additional taste for yourself in the form of bribes from corporate interests.

Is it too late for someone to enter the Democratic primary against Jefferson?