The Jefferson Raids & Their Constitutionality

The constitutional disputation which has arisen between congress and the Bush Administration over Justice Department raids of Rep. William Jefferson’s congressional office is as absurd as the new constitutional rights the U.S. Supreme Court is so characteristically fond of making from time to time. Congress has argued that the raid violated the Speech and Debate Clause of the constitution. The clause’s text and the facts behind the raid do no support this assertion.

Article I, Sec. 6 of the constitution holds that members of congress "shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place."

Rep. Jefferson was not arrested. He was not prevented from going to or returning from the House. He was not questioned or challenged on any speech he made in the House. His office was raided, as was his home, on the authority of a valid and legitimate search warrant signed by a judge after Rep. Jefferson failed to comply with a Justice Department subpoena.

The immunities of the Speech and Debate Clause do not apply to the facts of the raid, or a raid of a congressional office in general. Nothing in the clause’s text explicitly or implicitly renders an office of a member of the legislative branch immune from a search by the executive branch. Said search was executed legally via a legal search warrant. As Tony Blankley accurately points out, congress’ argument would create "the right of a crooked congressman to be secure in his person, papers and effects even from reasonable searches supported by a warrant issued on probable cause."

The raid may have violated traditional deference between the separate branches of the federal government, but it did not violate the constitution. To argue otherwise is a feeble attempt to give the Speech and Debate Clause a meaning its text simply does not bear.