Further to my previous post about the FBI's raid on Congressman Jefferson's Capitol office last weekend, the Speaker of the House (Republican Dennis Hastert) and the Minority Leader (Democrat Nancy Pelosi) have issued a joint press statement saying that the Justice Department was wrong to seize records from a congressial office, and calling upon them to return all the documents immediately, cease any review of them, and move in court to nullify the search warrant.

Speaker Hastert had already issued a previous statement deploring the raid, while still calling on Congressman Jefferson to co-operate with any inquiry. The Speaker pointed out that the documents seized were under a pending subpoena, and seizing them before it had expired was wrong.

Specifically the Speaker and Minority Leader have claimed that the raid violates the Separation of Powers principle of the US Constitution, as well as the Speech or Debate clause, and the practice of the last 219 years.

It appears likely that this battle will end up in the Supreme Court. SCOTUS Blog has already started a debate on the subject.

Posted by Dave Bryant at 9:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)