Jefferson case ruling will make it easier for corrupt congressmen

Washington Post:

A little-noticed aspect of an appellate court decision could sharply limit investigations of members of Congress and hamper ongoing corruption probes, the Justice Department said this week in a motion seeking an emergency stay of the ruling.

The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was handed down in August in the case of Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.), but its effects complicate other investigations, including those stemming from the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

Justice Department lawyers said in their motion that the appellate ruling represents an "unprecedented expansion" of the "speech or debate" clause of the Constitution, which was intended to protect legislators from intimidation under civil or criminal law. They said the decision calls into question the legality of investigative tools such as wiretapping, searches of home offices and voluntary interviews of congressional staffers.

All those methods have been employed by the department in ongoing investigations of current and former members of Congress, many of them over dealings with Abramoff. Among those under Justice Department investigation in connection with that matter are Reps. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.) and Tom Feeney (R-Fla.), as well as former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and former senator Conrad Burns (R-Mont.).

The ruling bars investigators from even "cursory exposure to legislative materials without a Member's consent," Justice Department attorneys said in their brief.

If the decision stands, members of Congress might be able to insist on having attorneys present when their staffers are interviewed by the FBI about legislative matters. Investigators may be stymied when they try to gather information about a luxury trip that a member of Congress asserts had an official purpose, or when they want to know if a former staffer violated rules on lobbying his old boss.

Several federal law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that the ruling is affecting all their investigations to one degree or another.

"It just complicates enormously the investigation of federal elected officials," said Peter Zeidenberg, who prosecuted an Abramoff-related case against David H. Safavian, a former senior General Services Administration official.

Zeidenberg, now in private practice, predicted that "it's going to take the government a long time to figure out what it can and can't do," adding: "The government is going to have to reassess how it investigates members of Congress. This is just going to make life extremely difficult."

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This expansion of the debate clause is ridiculous. It was never intended to be a shield for the corrupt. Sen. Cornyn and Sen. Leahy have offered a legislative fix for some of these problems and if Congress does not adopt it there will be plenty of material for "culture of corruption" ads in 2008.