Day By Day© by Chris Muir.

May 24, 2006

Lawmakers In a Tizzy over FBI Raid

Lawmakers on the Hill are upset over the FBI raid on Rep. William J. Jefferson's (D-LA) Capitol Hill office, which yielded cash and documents regarding a bribery investigation. Many of them see it as a violation of constitutional language and case law that protects lawmakers from being intimidated by the executive branch.

Both Democrats and Republicans are up in arms.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) complained directly to President Bush yesterday about the FBI raid, while House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) predicted a constitutional showdown before the Supreme Court.

"My opinion is that they took the wrong path," Hastert told reporters after his meeting with Bush in the White House. "They need to back up, and we need to go from there."

Captain Ed (of Captain's Quarters) has this to say:

This can't be the same Congress that issues subpoenas for all sorts of probes into the executive branch and the agencies it runs. Does Congress really want to establish a precedent that neither branch has to answer subpoenas if issued by the other, even if approved by a judge -- which this particular subpoena was?

The FBI had a valid subpoena for the information in Jefferson's office. He refused to provide it. The FBI had little choice but to go in and take it, and from the description given in the Washington Post, they took extraordinary care not to confiscate legitimate data relating to his legislative responsibilities.

Exactly. Jefferson refused to cooperate with a valid subpoena. How else was the FBI supposed to carry on with their investigation? Consult the Magic 8 ball?

This uproar, coming on the heels of Rep. Patrick Kennedy not having to take a breathalizer test after crashing his car and behaving as though he was intoxicated, gives the public a view not of a Congress devoted to the laws they themselves create, but of a Congress that believes its members to be above having to answer to those laws.

As Mel Brooks said as King Louis in History of the World Part I, "It's good to be the king."

Making a stink over a legal sweep into the office of a Congressman who is suspected of illegal activities isn't the best way to burnish Congress' ever-tarnishing reputation. Congressional leaders may want to think more about the tack they're taking on this. The people will only stand for so much.