FBI raid on congressman's office was legal, judge rules

As reported here, "[a]n FBI raid on a Louisiana congressman's Capitol Hill office was legal, a federal judge ruled Monday."

"Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas 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."

"Hogan dismissed arguments that the first-ever raid on a congressman's office violated the Constitution's protections against intimidation of elected officials." And rightly so.

""Congress' capacity to function effectively is not threatened by permitting congressional offices to be searched pursuant to validly issued search warrants," said Hogan, who had approved the FBI's request to conduct the overnight search of Jefferson's office." [Emphasis mine]

"Jefferson had sought the return of several computer hard drives, floppy disks and two boxes of paper documents that FBI agents seized during an 18-hour search of his Rayburn Building office." Probably based on the likelihood that there is incriminating evidence that would be useful in the on-going investigation of Rep. Jefferson's activities related to the money found in his freezer, I would have to think.

"At issue was a constitutional provision that protects elected officials from being questioned by the president, a prosecutor or a plaintiff in a lawsuit about their legislative work." That statement is absurd. How can accepting a bribe (most of which Jefferson hid in his freezer) be even remotely construed as "legislative work"? It can't. What is really at issue here, is whether Congress is "above the law" or not - which it isn't - and Judge Hogan quickly put that concept to rest.

""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."" Well, no one except the Left, and some misguided Republican Congressmen, who felt "violated" by the fact that the FBI and the Justice Department would dare to conduct a search of a Congressman's office, feeling that their offices are sacrosanct and untouchable. Guess what? Wrong!

Then, because they were angry about the search, some members of Congress threatened retaliation by "tinkering" with the budgets for the FBI and Justice Department, acting like a bunch of petulant three year old kids, until President Bush stepped in - acting like an adult separating the quarreling children - to order a 45 day "cooling off period", which ended Sunday.

"Because Hogan signed the search warrant, Jefferson's lawyers weren't surprised by his ruling." Well, they shouldn't be, since it was the logical thing to do, eh?

""While a congressman is not above the law, the executive branch must also follow the law," said one of the lawyers, Robert Trout, adding that the lawyers intend to appeal." This statement makes no sense, whatsoever. What part of issuing a valid search warrant in an on-going investigation of a public official accepting a bribe, and then basically re-iterating that is was a valid search warrant, is not following the law? Can any lawyers, versed in both Constitutional and criminal law, explain to me - in plain English - how the executive branch was not, or has not been, following the law? Anyone? I doubt it, to be honest. If you can, I'll post your response as an update to this post.

The fact that they intend to appeal the ruling comes as no surprise, either, but I don't believe they will get a favorable ruling, depending on which Court of Appeals hears the case, which will hopefully put this issue to bed, and put Congress on notice that they are not above the law.