[Dean's World] Ron Coleman: Appellate Court: FBI went too far with Jefferson raid

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Posted by Ron Coleman:
Appellate Court:  FBI went too far with Jefferson raid
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1186158469.shtml


   This [1]just in:

     The FBI violated the Constitution when agents raided U.S. Rep.
     William Jefferson's office last year and viewed legislative
     documents, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

     The court ordered the Justice Department to return any privileged
     documents it seized from the Louisiana Democrat's office on Capitol
     Hill. The court did not order the return of all the documents
     seized in the raid.

     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 review of the Congressman's paper files when the search was
     executed exposed legislative material to the Executive" and
     violated the Constitution, the court wrote. "The Congressman is
     entitled to the return of documents that the court determines to be
     privileged."

   Interesting. It doesn't make Jefferson any less of a crook.

References

   1. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8QPKFE80&show_article=1