CHICAGO – U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., who disappeared on a secretive medical leave two months ago, is expected back home within a matter of weeks, an aide said Thursday.

Jackson, 47, is being treated for depression and gastrointestinal issues at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and has been away from the public eye since June 10 when family members said he collapsed at their Washington home.

Jackson aide Rick Bryant said he recently spoke with Jackson, who asked Bryant to reach out to mayors and get updates on projects in his district, which includes parts of Chicago and stretches south.
"He's been in touch over the weeks. This was the most engaged he was," Bryant told The Associated Press. "He seemed like his old self."

Bryant said Jackson could emerge from leave in possibly three weeks, but it will be up to doctors.

Jackson's office has released few details about the congressman's health. At first his medical condition was described as exhaustion. Later, a statement from an unnamed doctor referred to it as a "mood disorder."

It was only earlier this month that Jackson's office said he was at Mayo and being treated for depression, after a transfer from the Sierra Tucson Treatment Center in Arizona.

"He expects to make a full recovery and hopes to be on the job soon," Bryant said. "He has not talked to his base in a while."

Jackson, who first won office in 1995, is on the November ballot with two little-known candidates. He's widely expected to win re-election in the heavily black, urban and Democratic district that has recently been redistricted to include more rural and white voters.
However, the sporadic and sparse details released about Jackson's condition since his leave began have prompted much scrutiny and speculation. His office did not disclose it publicly until June 25, nearly two weeks in. Members of his prominent family — including his father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and wife, Chicago Alderman Sandi Jackson — have been reluctant to talk.

However, Sandi Jackson said Thursday that doctors are trying to determine the proper mix of medications for her ailing husband.

"At this point, we are taking every day one day at a time," said the alderman during a street naming ceremony. "But we here on the ground are preparing for his eventual return. We don't know when that's going to be, but we want his constituents to know that they are very much on his mind."

She said her husband was "getting better" and talking to their children every morning and evening.

The timing of the leave — which comes as Jackson is under a House Ethics Committee investigation for ties to imprisoned former governor Rod Blagojevich— also raised questions. The committee is investigating allegations Jackson was involved in discussions about raising money for Blagojevich's campaign in exchange for the then-governor appointing him to President Barack Obama's vacated U.S. Senate seat.

The announcement of the leave also came just days after a former fundraiser connected to the allegations was arrested on unrelated federal medical fraud charges.

Jackson’s leave of absence, which his staff says officially began on June 10, came just as federal prosecutors in Chicago charged Raghuveer Nayak, his former fund-raiser, with $1.8 million in medical fraud. Those charges are not formally linked to “Operation Board Games,” a sprawling state corruption probe run by the U.S. attorney’s office that has led to criminal charges against 17 officials, including now-imprisoned former governor Rod Blagojevich (D). Nayak, however, has been in the cross hairs of the federal prosecutors for several years, as he has reportedly testified that Jackson asked him to raise campaign money for the then-governor in 2008 in hopes that Blagojevich would appoint him to Obama’s Senate seat.

For Jackson’s supporters in Washington and Chicago, these developments have been painful. “This is one of the smartest, most capable members of Congress,” Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.), who serves on the Appropriations Committee with Jackson, said Thursday.

But after a week in which Jackson’s staff has been forced to try to dispel an array of rumors, including one that he is in an Arizona facility being treated for alcohol and drug problems, his friends in the Congressional Black Caucus are whispering that they expect him to resign.

Perhaps, with his resignation, he will protect himself by snitchin' out the others.

He's holding out until after the election.

About what?

If you have evidence that Rep. Jackson did something that is illegal,
then provide it.

For the last several years, Nayak had been the aching thorn in Jackson’s side after Blagojevich was heard on tape saying that Jackson’s emissary — Nayak — offered what Blagojevich believed was a $1.5 million offer in exchange for the Senate seat.

Jackson has repeatedly and vehemently denied he authorized anyone to approach Blagojevich on his behalf.
But a Congressional ethics investigation still ongoing into Jackson cited Nayak by name when the panel found “probable cause to believe that Representative Jackson either directed … Raghuveer Nayak to offer to raise money for Governor Blagojevich in exchange for appointing Representative Jackson to the Senate seat … or had knowledge that Nayak would likely make such an offer.”

It would be helpful if you were to cite your source or provide a hyperlink to it.

Anyway, Rep. Jackson hasn't been proven guilty of a crime. To the best of my knowledge, he hasn't been officially charged with a crime.

I believe that a party is innocent of a charge until proven guilty, even when I disagree with that party's politics.

We'll see, after he gets dry, er, I mean, well, how quickly he is called in for questioning.

More ad hominem that insinuates something not proven.

Golly gee. I have an obsessed fan!

It's a free country, for now.

I can and will add hominy any damn time I wish.

Who am I to deny someone the freedom to use bad arguments?

Who do you think you are, Harry Reid?

You are the one who has to provide evidence that supports a claim. Otherwise, I will have no reason to believe it.

Then don't believe it and move on. No one cares if you believe it or not.