Unsurprisingly, the US federal judge who granted the initial search warrant of Congressman Jefferson's Capitol Hill office has refused to force the FBI to hand over the seized documents, and allowed them to start examining them. Jefferson had challenged this in court with the support of the leadership of both parties in the House.

The judge ruled that the search did not breach the Speech or Debate clause of the constitution, did not offend the principle of separation of powers, and was reasonable under the fourth ammendment. Jefferson has since lodged an appeal against this ruling, and is seeking a stay of the ruling until that appeal is held. The appeal will be heard by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, and could ultimately reach the Supreme Court.

I think the stay will probablybe granted, if not by the trail judge, then certainly by the circuit court, as Jefferson would be unduely disadvantaged if the appeal was ultimately successful. As to the final decision - that is another matter entirely.

The problem arose really because the FBI and Department of Justice decided to just ignore the separation of powers issue when executing the warrant. If they had discussed the matter privately with the House leadership, I'm sure a compromise would have been quickly reached allowing the search to proceed with oversight from Congressional lawyers.

But instead the FBI managed to piss off the Congressional leadership, and so they have a fight on their hands. While they may ultimately win the court battle, making enemies of those who pass the laws governing how you operate and provide your funding is a really bad idea.

The best soluton is for the House leaders and the Department of Justice to come to some agreement about how to proceed on this case, and in subsequent cases, so that the courts don't need to make the final decision.

Posted by Dave Bryant at 10:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)