Search of Crooked Congressman’s Office Declared Illegal

Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson was caught with a $90,000 bribe in his freezer. That didn’t stop his colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus from rallying around him, his constituents from reelecting him, or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from keeping him on sensitive Congressional committees.

Nor did it stop a federal appeals court from ruling today that the FBI’s search of his office supposedly violated the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause.

Jefferson’s argument that the Speech or Debate Clause shields him should have been rejected, as I and several other commenters have explained.

The court ruling, fortunately, doesn’t prevent Jefferson’s bribery prosecution from continuing.