ANDREW MCCARTHY: “You may have thought the Republican congressional leadership had run out of feet to shoot themselves in in their mind-boggling quest to place themselves, in the public mind, squarely on the side of coddling corruption rather than ridding themselves of a disgraced member. Nope. . . . Short of allowing congress to be in charge of investigations of congressmen, it’s hard to see how the Justice Department could have been more solicitous of the privileges and immunities of the legislature. It is just stunning that the Speaker is taking this tack, in favor of a guy on videotape taking a $100K, most of which he stashed in his freezer.”