the curious case of Richard Kelly. What first attracted our interest, we confess, was the neat political symmetry of Abscam. Of the eight congressional targets of federal prosecution, exactly eight have been on the outs with the Administration in recent months; some of them had openly supported President Carter’s political opponents. Equally conspicuous was the fact that only one Republican was named—Kelly. Had there been eight Democrats, of course, the Abscam case could have been an election-year bombshell, a Democratic scandal. Thus the case against Kelly carried unique political significance.
Kelly himself, on reflection, seemed a most unlikely candidate for the FBI setup. A former Marine, a prosecutor, and for 13 years a trial judge, Kelly is a straight arrow who has demonstrated little appetite for the fancy lifestyle of Washington. His spending habits seem every bit as conservative as his voting record: a cumulative 95 ACU record during his five years in the House. The only vulnerability we could quickly identify is Kelly’s standing with the party establishment. He is a loner, an independent spirit, an eccentric man with no strong ties to the formal GOP apparatus. (Within days of his admission that he took the money, Kelly was drummed out of the House Republican Conference. At this writing, the Democrats have not yet moved against any of their implicated members, not even the two Pennsylvania congressmen, Lederer and Myers, who are under indictment.)
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