Bob Ney pleads guilty-- will leave Congress someday

As expected, Bob Ney entered a guilty plea. It just took a couple of weeks after it was widely reported that he'd be entering a guilty plea. And now that it's official, you can expect the Republican House leadership to swing into action. In a month or so.

House Republican leaders are now saying that it's time to throw Bob Ney out of Congress -- or at least that it will be, just as soon as the November elections are over. "Bob Ney must be punished for the criminal actions he has acknowledged," Dennis Hastert, John Boehner, Roy Blunt and Deborah Pryce said in a statement issued today. If Ney doesn't take it upon himself to resign before then, they said, "we will move to expel him immediately as our first order of business when Congress resumes its legislative work in November."

Ney says he'll be sticking around for a while to handle constituent matters and staff issues. At an annual salary of $162,500 a year, he stands to make about $10,000 if he can hold on until the House returns to work on Nov. 9.