FORMER CONGRESSMAN PLEADS GUILTY TO WORKING WITH ISLAMISTS, TERRORISTS:

A former congressman and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations pleaded guilty in federal court today to obstruction of justice and to acting as an unregistered foreign agent related to his work for an Islamic charity with ties to international terrorism, announced Beth Phillips, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri.

Mark Deli Siljander, 59, of Great Falls, Va., pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Nanette K. Laughrey to one charge contained in an Oct. 21, 2008, federal indictment, and an additional charge filed today, involving his work for the Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA) of Columbia, Mo. Siljander was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan and was a U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations General Assembly.

You’d like to think he was the only one like this.

UPDATE: Eric Stahlfeld emails:

You make it sound like Siljander deliberately worked with terrorists, and hope he was the only one who would.

Actually, those of us with long memories have a different perspective. First, Siljander was elected to the seat David Stockman vacated when he became OMB Director, and lost in a bitter primary fight to Fred Upton in 1986. From Wikipedia:

Debbie Schlussel, who interned in Siljander’s office, stated that Siljander was known then as “the most pro-Israel Congressman on Capitol Hill”.[8] In 1985, Siljander proposed legislation which would deny Most Favored Nation status to countries that discriminate on cultural, ethnic or religious grounds.[9][10][11] Siljander was defeated in the 1986 Republican primary by his successor Fred Upton.

That doesn’t sound like he was actively promoting terrorism.

Second, Siljander later changed to try to promote reconciliation between Islam and Christianity. In that role, and as a former Congressman, he was a natural target in 2004 when the Senate put an Islamic charity based in Missouri — and which had received money from US AID, so it presumably wasn’t all bad — on a list of banned charities, and the charity wanted someone to try to reverse that decision.

So the charity dangled $75,000 in front of him, which was probably a lot of money to him. He took it, but did not register as an agent for the charity. And then on two occasions he told the FBI that he was not hired to lobby for the charity.

Both acts are crimes, and he pled guilty, and will be punished. You know darn well that there are a lot of people who are guilty of these sorts of things. You can’t hope that he’s the only one who does or had done these things

The impression you leave is quite different, and I doubt it’s fair or accurate.

Is it? Well, I’m reproducing this for the sake of fairness, but I’m not sure how much a difference this makes.