David Vitter, Harry Reid, and RICO

The Dead Pelican is reporting that Sen. David Vitter is requesting a RICO investigation of ACORN. He has written a letter to Eric Holder in which he says, "Now that both chambers of Congress have agreed to cut off funding for ACORN, the Justice Department should use all of the current legal tools at its disposal - like the RICO Act - to ensure that the taxpayer dollars that ACORN receives are being used properly."

On Tuesday Harry Reid dismissed Vitter's calls for a congressional investigation, basically saying that Congress had better things to do, like health care reform. This is an incredibly irresponsible response from Reid, but why should we be surprised?

The Hill had Reid's rebuke of Vitter. Reid said "As the U.S. Attorney firings and DOJ hiring scandals remind us, we should be very careful about any activities that could be viewed as politicizing investigations and law enforcement decisions," Reid said. "Toward that end, it is unfortunate that in your letter you thought it relevant to note reports claiming ACORN's ties to 'liberal research and training institutes.'" "The recent history cited above demonstrates it is very harmful to conduct any investigation... based on the political leanings of a group," he added.
Right. As long as it suits your own political side, that is. Investigating the CIA isn't political at all, right? Reopening a four year old, closed investigation wouldn't have any political meaning behind it at all, right? Got it.

You can read Vitter's letter at The Dead Pelican. I'm off to check out Reid's latest polling numbers.