The holiday season

Some of you may have missed this last week, and it's important.

The Justice Department's wide-ranging investigation of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff has entered a highly active phase as prosecutors are beginning to move on evidence pointing to possible corruption in Congress and executive branch agencies, lawyers involved in the case said.

Prosecutors have already told one lawmaker, Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), and his former chief of staff that they are preparing a possible bribery case against them, according to two sources knowledgeable about the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The 35 to 40 investigators and prosecutors on the Abramoff case are focused on at least half a dozen members of Congress, lawyers and others close to the probe said. The investigators are looking at payments made by Abramoff and his colleagues to the wives of some lawmakers and at actions taken by senior Capitol Hill aides, some of whom went to work for Abramoff at the law firm Greenberg Traurig LLP, lawyers and others familiar with the probe said.

Former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R), now facing separate campaign finance charges in his home state of Texas, is one of the members under scrutiny, the sources said. Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.) and other members of Congress involved with Indian affairs, one of Abramoff's key areas of interest, are also said to be among them.

I wonder what DeLay's crowd would shriek if he were indicted by Bush's Justice Department. "Out of control partisan  prosecutor" just wouldn't be transferrable. And given my current obsession with Montana, I salivate at Burns' problems. It makes a Senator Tester (ActBlue page) that much more possible.

It's still Fitzmas season with Rove in Fitzgerald's crosshairs, a Texas judge refused to throw out Ronnie Earle's case against DeLay, at least not yet, Republican Congressman Earl Cunningham will be pleading guilty to being a corrupt bastard, and now Justice has up to 40 investigators swarming over "at least" half a dozen more Republican congresscritters. And then there's the state-by-state scorecard of Republican corruption.

These are good times for criminal prosecutors. Bad times for corrupt Republicans. And bad times for those of us trying to invent new holidays to describe each of these investigations.