It’s the Feds Who Are Out of Line, Not Pat Nolan : Yes, there are corrupt officials and legislators in government who accept bribes. But it’s a mistake to think that the Republican assemblyman from Glendale is among them.

Imagine that you are a member of the state Assembly in Sacramento. In the course of voting on thousands of pieces of legislation, you vote for a non-controversial bill to attract a new industry to California. Jobs would be created without any taxpayer money. The bill passes overwhelmingly.

After the bill is surprisingly vetoed by Gov. George Deukmejian, it is reintroduced in the next session. Again, it passes overwhelmingly. Again, you vote your conscience and support the bill because it makes sense to you.

Weeks later, one of your staff assistants tries three times to schedule you to meet with executives of the company that sought the legislation. She says they want to thank you and help elect members of your political party.

On the fourth attempt at an appointment, you hastily agree to run across the street from the state Capitol to the new Hyatt. In a suite, you are thanked for your efforts and given an envelope.

After you leave, you ask your staff assistant, “What was this all about?”

She later opens the envelope to find postdated checks, the recipients’ names to be completed.

One of the checks is deposited into your campaign committee account. Another check goes into the coffers of your political party’s campaign committee.

You do not receive any of this money personally.

You didn’t know then that you were secretly videotaped as part of a setup, and for five years the government employs the slow-water-torture tactic of character assassination by media leaks.

Then, just before the statute of limitations expires, U.S. Atty. George O’Connell, after being fired by Atty. Gen. Janet Reno but before officially leaving office, steers a grand jury into indicting you for bribery, extortion and related crimes.

You are Assemblyman Pat Nolan of Glendale.

You are a family man of modest means. You vote against salary hikes and perks because you believe politicians should set an example for more limited government. As an elected official, you work more hours and earn much less than your law school classmates who practice law.

As the Republican Party’s Assembly leader, you raised campaign funds to help candidates of your political party. You never enriched yourself, and no one says you have.

The fact that you are regarded as an honest man by friend and foe is inadmissible in court.

Now you must deplete your limited savings and raise hundreds of thousands of dollars from people who believe in you so you can prove that the Feds, not you, are dirty.

That is the way Pat Nolan tells it. I believe him. I’ve known him as a person of integrity since we were teen-agers.

The rogue FBI agents and ambitious government attorneys in the Nolan case are interested not in justice but in a conviction.

It’s common knowledge in the Capitol that FBI agents spent years interviewing lobbyists, contributors and disgruntled former employees in an effort to “get” Nolan.

Outgoing U.S. Atty. O’Connell was sensitive about the fact that no Republican had been prosecuted on his watch, so on his way out of office he indicted Nolan. If Nolan beats the trumped-up charge, O’Connell can blame his successor.

We are told that this was a “sting.” The only people stung by O’Connell’s vendetta are the conscientious FBI agents disgraced by their bad-apple colleagues and the taxpayers who are paying for the prosecutorial misconduct.

The agents who tried to entrap Nolan and who masqueraded as corporate executives contrived to seek legislation so appealing that it easily passed.

In fact, Deukmejian would have signed it, but the FBI asked him to veto it because it was phony, to avoid embarrassing Washington.

Many people contribute to the campaigns of elected officials who share a philosophy of government or an approach to issues. They also give to campaigns to reward political friends and to help the contributors have access to these elected officials.

You may not like our system of government and politics, but not all the people are crooks who feel deeply about issues and the elected officials whose campaigns they support.

The tragedy is that there really are corrupt politicians who accept bribes.

Pat Nolan is not one of them.