As I said at the time, the search of William Jefferson's office on Capitol Hill was entirely constitutional. A Federal Judge has now confirmed that, rejecting arguments from lawmakers that the FBI violated the constitution's speech and debate clause when they searched his office with a legal warrant as part of an ongoing bribery investigation.
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.
"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.
Quite right.
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I found it amazing that the judge who granted the search warrant would be the judge who ruled the search constitutional.
What a shocker.
And according to CNN:
Makes you wonder where they got the evidence they used to get Hogan to grant the warrant in the first place; that's not a very tight thought there.
You're probably right, Ed. But this is needing review from a jurist other than the one who originally granted the warrant and who therefore has an obvious interest.
The statement by the judge is correct. Their theory of legislative privilege is that no congressional office can ever be searched by law enforcement, even pursuant to a valid court order. That pretty much is a sanctuary for crime. As for this being the same judge, that's hardly a surprise. They're trying to quash the court order, so it goes to that judge first. Now they'll appeal it, but the result will be the same. The search was legal.
Ed, that's why I said "you're probably right, Ed."
And, while I understand how things work their way through courts, I don't really think it tells us anything that we didn't know that the judge who granted the warrant thinks the execution of the warrant was constitutional.
I just bought myself some egg rolls for supper. It probably won't surprise you that I think, tonight at least, egg rolls make a fine supper. Even the kind I just bought.
This point seems so painfully obvious to me I was amazed the whole thing caused more than a day's kerfuffle.
We've kicked the ideas here back and forth enough, so I'll try to be brief. Yes, the raid was Constitutional. Was it a good idea? In this case probably, but....
Many parliamentary democracies have absolute criminal immunity for MPs. This is not to protect criminal behavior, but because the first thing any dictator does is arrest the opposition lawmakers (okay, they seize the radio station first, this would be #2 on the agenda). The legislative branch simply cannot fulfill its watchdog function over the executive if its members are subject to arbitrary arrest.
As stated, I don't believe this raid to be arbitrary. Still, given the trends in civil liberties under this administration (and the last, btw) it is a dangerous precedent. We really don't need to see Congress defanged when the opposition is likely to get back in charge.
The protection against arbitrary arrest is not to ban all arrests, but to require that such arrests be made pursuant to a legal warrant with open judicial proceedings that protect due process. Given that all of that happened here, I see no reason to fret about a dangerous precedent. It would be a far more dangerous precedent to determine that no such search or arrest could take place even if undertaken with all the proper protections for due process in place.