When the FBI raided the office of Rep. William Jefferson (D-Cold Cash In The Freezer), I argued that it was absurd for Congress to claim that it was exempt from search warrants issued according to the Fourth Amendment.

Well, a federal judge backed my position today.

An FBI raid on a Louisiana congressman's Capitol Hill office was legal, a federal judge ruled Monday.

Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan said members of Congress are not above the law. He rejected requests from lawmakers and Democratic Rep. William Jefferson to return material seized by the FBI in a May 20-21 search of Jefferson's office.

In a 28-page opinion, Hogan dismissed arguments that the first-ever raid on a congressman's office violated the Constitution's protections against intimidation of elected officials.

The attempt to apply the Speech and Debate Clause to this was patently absurd. The judge dismissed it out of hand. Futhermore, he also rejected the notion that the raid breached the separation of powers.

"No one argues that the warrant executed upon Congressman Jefferson's office was not properly administered," Hogan wrote. "Therefore, there was no impermissible intrusion on the Legislature. The fact that some privileged material was incidentally captured by the search does not constitute an unlawful intrusion."

I particularly love this quote.

If there is any threat to the separation of powers here, it is not from the execution of a search warrant by one co-equal branch of government upon another, after the independent approval of the third separate, and co-equal branch. Rather, the principle of the separation of powers is threatened by the position that the Legislative Branch enjoys the unilateral and unreviewable power to invoke an absolute privilege, thus making it immune from the ordinary criminal process of a validly issued search warrant. This theory would allow Members of Congress to frustrate investigations into non-legislative criminal activities for which the Speech or Debate Clause clearly provides no protection from prosecution.

Read the whole opinion here.

(H/T Captain's Quarters, Stop the ACLU, Gay Patriot, GOPBloggers)

Posted by: Greg at 01:00 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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