Advertisement

High court stays out of FBI search

Share
Times Staff Writer

The Supreme Court refused Monday to referee a dispute between the FBI and indicted Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.) over the search of his congressional office, leaving it to lawmakers and the Justice Department to agree on rules for future searches.

Jefferson was indicted on graft charges last year in the so-called cold-cash case. The FBI had planted $100,000 with an informant who solicited Jefferson’s help in brokering business in Africa, and agents later found $90,000 of the cash in his freezer at home.

As part of their investigation, FBI agents obtained a search warrant and entered Jefferson’s office in the Rayburn Building on Capitol Hill. They sought paper documents and computer files that would be relevant to the investigation.

Advertisement

Such a search of a congressional office apparently had never been done before, and House leaders objected, including then-Speaker J. Dennis Hastert. They said it violated the Constitution, which shields members of Congress from arrest “during their attendance” and says “for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place.”

In the past, the Supreme Court has said the rule does not protect lawmakers from answering to criminal charges, including for allegedly taking bribes over matters related to legislation.

But in a 2-1 decision last year, the U.S. court of appeals here agreed with Jefferson’s lawyers that the so-called speech and debate clause barred FBI agents from poring over papers and files in a congressional office. The judges reasoned that some of the papers may contain politically sensitive material.

But the judges did not forbid all future searches of congressional offices, nor did they say Jefferson was entitled to have all the seized documents returned. Instead, they said a neutral person, such as a magistrate, should review the documents first to make sure that none of them were politically sensitive.

Justice Department lawyers asked the Supreme Court to intervene. They said the ruling threatened to make congressional offices into “a sanctuary for crime.” But their appeal may have been undercut when Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey told lawmakers in February that he would prefer to have his department and Congress work out ground rules for future searches.

In a one-line order, the court said it would not hear the case of U.S. vs. Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2113.

Advertisement

The outcome is not expected to affect Jefferson’s trial, which will be held in Alexandria, Va.

Spokeswoman Laura Sweeney said the Justice Department was disappointed by the court’s refusal to hear the case.

Robert Trout, a lawyer for Jefferson, said: “From the very moment that we learned of the FBI’s raid on a congressional office -- the first in our nation’s history -- we were convinced the Department of Justice was out of bounds. We are gratified that our initial judgment about this unprecedented raid has finally been confirmed by the Supreme Court.”

--

david.savage@latimes.com

Advertisement