A federal appeals court ruled today that the FBI's raid on Rep. William Jefferson's (D-LA) congressional office last year was unconstitutional. The court has ordered the DoJ to return all privileged documents to Jefferson for vetting, but allowed them to keep the other documents.
The nitty gritty:
Jefferson argued that the first-of-its-kind raid trampled congressional independence. The Justice Department said that declaring the search unconstitutional would essentially prohibit the FBI from ever looking at a lawmaker's documents.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected that claim. The three-judge panel unanimously ruled that the search itself was constitutional but that FBI agents crossed the line when they viewed every record in the office without giving Jefferson the chance to argue that some documents involved legislative business.
The constitutional issue is the "speech and debate" clause, which guarantees Congress the ability to operate independently of the executive. It's unclear how or whether this development will affect the government's case against Jefferson, as none of the seized material was used in his recent indictment on corruption charges.
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