The biggest news in the Capitol this week was undoubtedly the May 20 raid [3] of the congressional offices of Rep. William Jefferson [4] (D-La.) by FBI [5] agents. The agents were part of a “public corruption and government fraud squad” and stayed for 17 hours, searching and cataloguing evidence in the bribery investigation surrounding Jefferson, in which two of his associates have already pleaded guilty. The FBI filed an affidavit [6] to support their application for a search warrant that spelled out their evidence against Jefferson. We’ve gone through it line by line and entered all the details into Jefferson’s Congresspedia profile. You’ve really got to read it [7] to believe it.

Jefferson is one of three current and former representatives that the usually-moribund House ethics committee [8] has just initiated investigations into. Also targeted are Rep. Bob Ney [9] (R-Ohio), who’s being investigated by the Department of Justice [10] team tackling the Jack Abramoff [11] conspiracy, and former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham [12] (R-Calif.), who’s already been sentenced to prison for his own bribery offenses.

Why go after Cunningham when he’s already been forced out of office? A statement released by ethics committee chairman Doc Hastings [13] (R-Wash.) and ranking member Howard Berman [14] (D-Calif.) stated that “reports have suggested that federal officials are investigating whether Representative Cunningham and possibly other Members and staff were provided hotel rooms, limousines, and other services [15] in exchange for performing official acts.” Looks like federal contractor Mitchell Wade [16], who has pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe Cunningham, may know where a few more bodies are buried.

One member who escaped investigation: Rep. Tom DeLay [17] (R-Texas), who the ethics committee said had escaped due to the fact that he’s resigning on June 9.

You can find details on each of these scandals in the members’ respective Congresspedia [18] profiles, but stay tuned – there’s plenty more brewing as we speak.