US:The US justice department has asked the Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court decision limiting law enforcement searches of congressional offices, arguing that the sweep of the ruling last summer may kill ongoing public corruption investigations.
In a petition filed this week, the department urged the court to weigh in on how far the "speech or debate" clause of the constitution goes in insulating members of Congress from legal action. In the meantime, he said, "investigations of corruption in the nation's capital and elsewhere will be seriously and perhaps fatally stymied."
The decision by the US Court of Appeals for the district of Columbia circuit was handed down in August in the case of Democrat representative William J Jefferson, whose office was searched in 2006 by FBI agents investigating possible bribery. A three-judge panel ruled that under the constitution, the FBI is barred from "a location where legislative materials [ are] inevitably to be found," unless the member consents.
Justice department lawyers called the ruling an "unprecedented expansion" of the speech-or-debate clause, which they said protects legislative acts but does not shield non-legislative materials that may show criminal activity.
The impact of the decision "affects virtually every public corruption investigation involving the legislative branch", justice lawyers wrote in their supreme court petition.
The appellate ruling came amid a spate of public corruption investigations in Washington. In addition to the ongoing Jefferson investigation, there are other inquiries affected by the appeals court decision arising from the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.
The justice department petition said that the decision may bar searches of lawmakers' homes, cars, briefcases and home offices.
As a result, it argues, many normal investigative tools have been suspended for fear that their use could taint an entire investigation.
Some members of Congress are already asserting that the appeals court ruling means that law enforcement officers cannot interview Capitol Hill staffers without the consent of their bosses, the department said. Many current and former staffers have been interviewed, investigated and, in several instances, prosecuted as part of ongoing investigations of members of Congress.
The speech-or-debate clause states that "for any speech or debate in either House, [ members of Congress] shall not be questioned in any other place."