U.S. Asks High Court to Nix 'Speech-or-Debate' Ruling

[struggle4progress]

Source: Washington Post

Justice Dept. Says It Makes Lawmakers Invulnerable

By Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 21, 2007; Page A03

The Justice Department has asked the Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court decision limiting law enforcement searches of congressional offices, arguing that the sweep of the ruling last summer may kill ongoing public corruption investigations.

Acting Solicitor General Gregory G. Garre, in a petition filed this week, urged the high court to weigh in on how far the "speech or debate" clause of the Constitution goes in insulating members of Congress from legal action. In the meantime, he said, "investigations of corruption in the nation's capital and elsewhere will be seriously and perhaps fatally stymied."

The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was handed down in August in the case of Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.), whose office was searched in 2006 by FBI agents investigating possible bribery. A three-judge panel ruled that under the Constitution, the FBI is barred from "a location where legislative materials inevitably to be found," unless the member consents.

Justice Department lawyers called the ruling an "unprecedented expansion" of the speech-or-debate clause, which they said protects legislative acts but does not shield non-legislative materials that may show criminal activity. The appeals court found that FBI agents reviewed protected legislative records in the course of searching for criminal evidence ...

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/20/AR2007122002197.html

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Jefferson to tell judge about interview
He felt he couldn't leave FBI meeting
Thursday, December 20, 2007
By Bill Walsh

ALEXANDRIA, VA. -- U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, is expected to take the witness stand today to challenge FBI agents' accounts that he was free to leave what turned into a damaging interview before a search of his home in 2005 as part of their public corruption probe.

It will be the first time the congressman will testify in the 2 1/2-year investigation that has cast him as the mastermind in a web of international bribery schemes and triggered a 16-count indictment against him in June. Jefferson has pleaded innocent.

Jefferson is expected to tell a U.S. District Court judge that he felt coerced into making statements to the agents that the government plans to use against him at trial in February ...

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-2/11981330823090.xml&coll=1

[HowHasItComeToThis]

1. NOW WE HAVE THE POLITICAL POLICE WANTING FREE HAND.

SOME HOW THIS STINKS TO HIGH HEAVEN.

[candymarl]

2. I agree

This is a very bad idea. What if a Senator or Congressperson is simply watching a floor speech or debate? Technically they are not debating or making a speech. Do we really want our Congress members, both houses, looking over their shoulders while trying to conduct the peoples' business? Do we want to see them dragged away while watching CSPAN? Is the Bush DOJ planning such a spectacle? I wouldn't put it past them. They're desperate to keep the WH and take back Congress.

[formercia]

3. The day the Supreme Court rules the Constitution

unconstitutional is the day the United States will cease to exist as a nation.

[formercia]

4. Here's some case law on speech and debate clause

http://books.google.com/books?id=-lqhYVatZ4YC&pg=RA1-PA248&lpg=RA1-PA248&dq=speech+and+debate+clause+corporations&source=web&ots=2aCBP3J565&sig=P8b3pFLv9xSUpmnm-KP_ZBmrUZM

[rockybelt]

5. It's the Justice Department.

What the hell do you expect? Mukasey is another Gonzo, just older.

[robcon]

6. Jefferson's defense - that he felt coerced to talk - is laughable.

A Congressman knows anything he says can, and will, be used against him.

[tom_paine]

7. As the Bushies further prepare to cow and neuter Congress

I'd ask when enough is enough, but for a Bush, a Hitler, a Pinochet, we all know enough is enough when all enemies are cowed and silent, and power is fully unchecked by anything.

The Bushie Ministry of Justice functions, with exceptions to the rule decreasing in frequency daily, as an arm of the Bushie/Nazi party.

Nothing less and nothing more.