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I understand Hastert's (and Congress') point here. There is an historical point to be made. The House is the "people's house". The "executive" or the "judicial" has no right to invade or search the people, their "house" has to be jealously guarded. (Remember that now you can indict a "ham sandwich") The Brit's love of pomp and circumstance sometime serves as a good object lesson. They slam the door in the face of the King/Queen. In the time of the colonies, it was procedure to search without cause the members of the local governments. King Charles I did it to Parliament. To search a congressional office (the only government body which was originally elected directly by the people until the XVII Amendment) would be the same as spying on "the people". The precedent exists to protect the "business of the people" and not meant to put Congress above the law. The same applies to Article I, Section 6. (Felony is excluded)

I believe that Hastert was right to object to search Jefferson's office, and that the House should be informed of the evidence of "probable cause". (in the case of searching the office of a Rep, "probable cause" may need to be "SUPER DUPER probable cause") In the case of William Jefferson, Democrat, Louisiana, it looks like that had it. /History lesson over

Since now have an honest Administration, and an honest AG office, we can presume that the evidence was overwhelming that William Jefferson, Democrat, Louisiana, had documents or other evidence in his Congressional Office (however- I think the Congressional SGT at Arms, should have witnessed the search)

William Jefferson, Democrat, Louisiana, CANNOT use the Constitution which protects the "people's house" from spying to hide evidence of a crime. The search in this case was justified IMHO.

However, (butt monkey alert) now that a precedent has been set, we must remember that there have been (Clinton FBI files comes to mind) Administrations in the past who would use it for purely political reasons. There will be executives in the future (heaven forbid - Hellery herself) who would trump up charges against another political party, and search offices not only for evidence of a felony but take "accidentally on purpose" political documents.

Be so careful -- very careful of how we applaud this search, in this case it was justified, but remember why Hastert would hold the "Speech and Debate" clause so jealously. The principle may be more important.

Another reason why we should work as hard as we can to make sure that we elect honest representative who will not abuse the office to hide their criminal behavior, or Presidents who will use their power merely for political gain.

Be very careful when you threaten to "vote them out" or "teach them a lesson". If you think that a RINO is bad, why vote for a lib who will be worse????

by the way -- my tag line is NOT a contradiction to the above paragraph. Osborne was lost in the gov primary. I would have supported him, or the other losing candidate over the Dem in the general election.

There is an historical point to be made. The House is the "people's house". The "executive" or the "judicial" has no right to invade or search the people, their "house" has to be jealously guarded. (Remember that now you can indict a "ham sandwich") The Brit's love of pomp and circumstance sometime serves as a good object lesson. They slam the door in the face of the King/Queen. In the time of the colonies, it was procedure to search without cause the members of the local governments. King Charles I did it to Parliament. To search a congressional office (the only government body which was originally elected directly by the people until the XVII Amendment) would be the same as spying on "the people". The precedent exists to protect the "business of the people" and not meant to put Congress above the law.

Precisely!

Thanks for posting this good explanation of the issues at hand.

The "executive" or the "judicial" has no right to invade or search the people, their "house" has to be jealously guarded.

Up and until 'probable cause' that a felony has been committed and that evidence exists on their property whereupon it can searched after the appropriate search warrant is issued by a judge as was done in this case. Nice history lesson though, too bad it ignores the available legal proceedures we already have in place that would permit such a search under the specific circumstances of this case.

I believe that Hastert was right to object to search Jefferson's office....

That's all a bunch of BS. Congress lost it's right to complain about executive branch subpoenas and warrants when it served a subpoena on the Executive Branch in United States v. Nixon. As long as it is a properly obtained subpoena, then the congressman and congress has no right to complain. People's house or not, the fact is that this was a reasonable search and seizure under the provisions of the Constitution. NOTHING in the Constitution gives a congressman any more rights than you or me except when he is on the floor of Congress, where he or she is immune from arrest except in certain circumstances, and a felony happens to be one of those certain circumstances.

Hastert is doing nothing more than protecting the crooks in congress so that they won't vote his butt out of the speakership position. There are clearly enough crooks in congress on both sides of the aisle (who are scared to death of a justice department investigation) who would be happy to vote out Hastert and put in a corrupt politician like themselves who will put up roadblocks into any investigation into their own shenannigans.