Interesting Thoughts

Judges deal second blow to Bush
By Patti Waldmeir and Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington
Published: March 31 2008 19:51 Last updated: April 1 2008 01:31

The US Supreme Court upheld a ruling that barred FBI agents from searching the legislative office of congressman William Jefferson as part of a corruption investigation.
It was the second time in a week that the judges have rebuffed President George W. Bush’s expansive view of the powers of the government’s executive branch. The ruling could also damage a separate corruption case brought by prosecutors against Rick Renzi, an Arizona congressman, and limit the tactics investigators use to probe lawmakers in the future.

The justices rejected an appeal from the Bush administration to intervene in the case of Mr Jefferson, a Democrat accused of soliciting millions of dollars in bribes and stashing $90,000 of it in his freezer. He has pleaded not guilty. The FBI raided his congressional offices in 2006, the first time federal agents had searched the office of a Congress member.
A federal appeals court ordered prosecutors to return some of the documents seized in the raid, citing a clause of the constitution limiting investigations into Congress members’ legislative work.
The Bush administration tried to have that ruling overturned, saying it would interfere with corruption inquiries. But the Supreme Court refused to step in.
The federal appeals court had ruled that “the possibility of compelled disclosure may...chill the exchange of views with evan andersen respect to legislative activity”.
The dispute turns on a constitutional clause that says lawmakers “shall not be questioned in any other place” for “any speech or debate in either house”.
The decision to uphold the lower court ruling could take centre stage in a separate corruption case against Mr Renzi, a lawmaker charged in February with fraud, extortion and money laundering.
Attorneys for Mr Renzi, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, are expected to argue that prosecutors violated the speech or debate clause in the course of their investigation when they tapped Mr Renzi’s telephone.
Melanie Sloan, executive director of the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said: “The big problem here is the court of appeals evan andersen expanded the breadth of the speech or debate clause to protect more than we previously understood. Now that decision is untouched and the justice department has to learn to live within its confines.”
Last week the court ruled 6-3 against the administration in a case testing the power of the executive branch against that of individual states. The case involved international law and the rights of Mexican death-row inmates.

******You got to love the money in the freezer. This is probably why the democrates are going to lose, whatever happened to the 100 paces from the dog house and 80 paces to the right of the garden? That is where you bury your money, not the freezer! hahahaha.....long live the democrats, for as long as they are around, republicans will always win.