That appears to have been a dumb move.
If you want to tick a judge off ignore a subpoena he has issued. The time to convince the judge that his subpoena was illegal was many months ago.
So with the subpoena ignored for month after month the judge issued a search warrant. And we are off to the races.
The only real recourse for congress is to take their case to court. This has about as much sense as telling the Judge, "You don't have the power to fine me.. Your Honor!!" Bet the farm that before you can say "the excrement hit the fan" the judge will fine you... the maximum amount.
It will be hard to win an appeal. How your case is the courts do not have the right to issue such subpoenas and have them enforced is unconstitutional when the house refused to even answer the courts subpeona.
I think the house has lost a lot of Turf from just plain suptidity.
I noted that the Justice Department gave the House several hours notice of what was coming before they exercised the search warrant. The House officials apparently did noting until after the search lasting many hours was well over.
I find it hard to believe any career justice department lawyer would ask for the warrant to search the house offices with out approval from someone a lot higher up in the administration. I find it interesting that the Presidnet gave Hastert no comfort.
I wonder if this would have been allowed to come to this point if Delay were still in control.
Hastert is a figure head... The figure is a plaster of paris zero.
I was wondering if Delay would have let things get this far too. And if a judge grants an appeal, I'll be stunned.
I thought we were the law and order party; this is the dumbest thing I've seen Republicans do in a looong time.