FBI's Saturday night Capitol Hill raid raises alarms

[The Straight Story]

FBI's Saturday night Capitol Hill raid raises alarms

By Susan Davis, CongressDaily
The unprecedented FBI raid Saturday night of the Rayburn House Office Building office of Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., has stoked tempers on Capitol Hill as some past and present lawmakers and legal experts criticized the Justice Department's actions.

"There is no excuse for the FBI for the first time in history searching a congressional office and apparently doing so in total regard of due process as it relates to the legislative branch," former Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., wrote Sunday night in an e-mail to several members and aides obtained by CongressDaily. Gingrich was particularly critical of what he described as the executive branch trampling constitutional lines of authority.

"The president should respond accordingly and should discipline (probably fire) whoever exhibited this extraordinary violation," he wrote. "The protection of the legislative branch from the executive branch's policing powers is a fundamental principle which goes all the way back to the English Civil War," he added, describing the incident as "the most blatant violation of the constitutional separation of powers in my lifetime."

House officials were given short notice of the FBI's intentions Saturday, and neither Jefferson's attorney, Robert Trout, nor the general counsel of the House were allowed to monitor the search, according to the Associated Press. "The government's actions in obtaining a search warrant to search the offices of a United States congressman were outrageous," Trout said in a statement, according to AP. "There were no exigent circumstances necessitating this action."

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