Weldon won’t clear name by pleading Fifth

2 Nov 2006 // During the course of his political career, U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon has taken on many personas: Volunteer firefighter. Motorcycle gang-busting mayor. Teacher. Crusading county councilman. Congressman who’s not afraid to take on the big boys at the CIA and FBI.
Now, with less than a week to go before the election that could end it all, the 7th District Republican is playing a new role: The invisible man.

With allegations of corruption and cronyism swirling about him, and federal prosecutors breathing down his neck, Weldon has all but dropped out of his campaign against retired Navy Adm. Joe Sestak. There have been no public appearances for days. His voice - once dubbed that of "The Troublemaker" by a national magazine - has been stilled, leaving campaign spokespeople and other flacks to answer questions directed at his camp.

It’s understandable, if disconcerting. Weldon simply can’t appear in public before the press without being inundated by questions about the FBI raid on the homes and offices of his daughter Karen and his close political ally, Springfield GOP leader Charles Sexton, whose lobbying business earned some $1 million representing clients championed by the congressman. Even an appearance last week with a friendly conservative talk-radio show host led to the kind of headlines every politician dreads.

Sestak, Weldon’s Democratic opponent, continues asking questions about the investigation. No answers are forthcoming. Local and national media organizations are poring over business transactions of other Weldon family members, friends, and former staff members. It seems that being close to Curt Weldon has helped a lot of people make a lot of money.

In the meantime, the feds, too, are silent. But they’re likely not idle.

In its endorsement of Sestak’s candidacy, this newspaper noted that Weldon’s protestations of innocence might very well be borne out. That still remains the case.

It still is inexplicable, however, that he has not released "the letter." For the past two years, whenever he was asked about the meteoric lobbying career of his daughter Karen and Sexton, Weldon always responded that he voluntarily went to the House Ethics Committee with all the particulars and was given a clean bill of health. More recently he’s said that the committee wrote him a letter closing the case.

Why, then, has he not produced it? With his family and friends under fire and his job on the line, why won’t Weldon release the one piece of paper that could give him an exculpatory boost?

His lawyer won’t let him, Weldon says. The rationale for that is unclear. But common sense dictates that the attorney must have a good reason for his stance.

And so, instead, in the campaign’s final days, those who are speaking for Weldon are doing so mostly from TV screens in carefully choreographed advertisements. On Wednesday, Weldon’s wife, Mary, joined them.

That was a start. Mary Weldon has always been the most private of political spouses, rarely appearing in public and never granting interviews. To see her standing by her husband and family in a television commercial is affecting ..and very sad.

Like other friends of the congressman in another TV spot, Mary Weldon reminds the voters of all he has done for them over the years and asks them to suspend their judgment.

Give Curt the benefit of the doubt, she says.

Voters who are concerned about the carnage in Iraq and a Congress that has failed in its oversight duty may take those words into account.

But they may also remember why those words have a familiar ring.

They’re usually uttered by a defense attorney in closing arguments before a judge.