LITTLE ROCK — Slow this down. Think it through, in all its remarkable, reprehensible detail.
Ask yourself how an enormously gifted attorney, accustomed to the national limelight even before his eight terms in the U.S. House, could think his bold conduct involving staff members and other potential witnesses against him would remain secret.
Ask how he could squander a probable lifetime position in Congress. Squander all the good he might do there for the people he had sought to provide with better jobs and better futures.
Ask how he could humiliate not one but three generations of his globally known family-his famous father and his young children included.
No, Jesse Jackson Jr. wouldn’t be the first to delight in secret luxuries and expensive acquisitions along a reliable, efficient path to the self destruction of his career and his reputation.
Imagine, though, the depth of conniving, or self-delusion, or entitlement, or sheer audacious recklessness, that the federal accusations against Jackson would have required of him. What the feds on Friday suggested had happened is a sustained crime binge that could succeed only if a man ensnarled by elaborate financial-reporting requirements somehow kept it all secret.
We’re talking about that fabulously blessed congressman-a pol seriously mentioned as a future Chicago mayor or U.S. president-allegedly converting some $750,000 in campaign donations for the personal benefit of himself and his wife, Sandi.
Imagine either of them, the former congressman or the former alderman to whom he’s married, variously deciding there would be no consequence other than self-satisfaction from filching that money, according to the feds, to buy:
A gold-plated men’s Rolex watch: $43,350.
Children’s furniture: $9,587.64.
Cashmere capes, a mink reversible parka and black fox reversible parka: $5,150.
Martial-arts actor Bruce Lee memorabilia: $10,105.
Those items, all totaled, don’t approach $750,000. So surely there are other, allegedly illicit expenditures not itemized in the government’s 10-page document accusing Jesse Jackson Jr. of conspiracy, false statements, mail fraud and wire fraud.
The nature of this document, called a criminal information, suggests that Jackson has reached a plea agreement with prosecutors covering these alleged wrongdoing from 2005 through mid-2012.
Sandi Jackson’s attorneys said Friday that she has reached such a deal with prosecutors and will plead guilty to a separate charge that she committed tax fraud for calendar years 2006 through 2011.
If and when a federal court accepts plea deals, we’ll learn whether either Jackson, or both, is prison-bound. We’ll learn, that is, just how blindingly darkness has fallen on two people who, fair to say, have disappointed admirers by the millions.
Editorial, Pages 14 on 02/19/2013