Rep. Courtney Statement on Indictment of Rep. William Jefferson

Press Release

REP. COURTNEY STATEMENT ON INDICTMENT OF REP. WILLIAM JEFFERSON

Congressman Joe Courtney released the following statement in response to the announcement of charges against Louisiana Democrat Congressman William Jefferson:

"The American public has entrusted their elected officials to provide honest leadership in Congress. Regrettably, this body has been tarnished by the unscrupulous behavior of certain elected officials. No Member of Congress is above the law and I firmly believe that if the evidence substantiates these charges, Mr. Jefferson should face the full legal and political consequences of his actions."

As a candidate for Congress, Representative Joe Courtney disagreed with party leaders on both sides of the aisle and President Bush, when Mr. Courtney argued in an op-ed that Members' offices are not immune from warranted searches. Representative Courtney was alarmed by the claim that the offices of Members of Congress were off-limits to the Justice Department. This was in response to the warranted search by the FBI of Rep. William Jefferson's Congressional office.

On June 2, 2006 the following opinion editorial appeared in Second Congressional District of Connecticut newspapers:

Now The Congress Gets Angry Over An Intrusion Of Personal Privacy?

By Joe Courtney, 6/02/06

Over the last five years, the Bush administration's aggressive exercise of executive-branch powers has been pushing the constitutional envelope in case after case — the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity, the use of "signing statements" 750 times to unilaterally reinterpret acts of Congress, and eavesdropping without warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Security Act courts, to name just a few. In the past, such claims of power by one branch of the government would be challenged by the Congress, regardless of party.

For example, Franklin D. Roosevelt's "court packing" was blocked by a Democratic Congress and Watergate was exposed by Republicans such as Lowell Weicker and Howard Baker. Up until recently, though, the current Republican-controlled Congress has been quiet as a mouse while George Bush has steadily shifted power to the White House, away from Capitol Hill.

Recently that is, until the Federal Bureau of Investigation, acting with a signed warrant from a federal judge, searched the congressional office of Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana on May 20. Suddenly, the congressional leadership that has been looking the other way at intrusions on personal privacy for ordinary citizens and its own Article One powers erupted with outrage that their offices were searched. Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi jointly demanded the return of all seized items on the grounds that the Capitol was somehow immune from a judicial warrant. Amazingly, President Bush responded by intervening in the case and ordering the FBI to seal the contents of the search.

The self-serving claim of "Capitol immunity" from searches, at a time when the Justice Department is in full gear investigating influence-peddling by the likes of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, would be comical, if it was not being taken so seriously. While there does exist a constitutional privilege "from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses," that has never been interpreted as a blanket immunity for members of Congress from ordinary criminal arrest and prosecution. Yale constitutional Professor Akhil Reed Amar recently analyzed this theory in Slate magazine, and dismissed the claim of congressional barons "that they are the lords of their own castle." We do not, Professor Amar observed, have a "separation of spaces rather than a separation of powers." Congressman Jefferson is protected by the Fourth Amendment's requirement that searches can only be conducted with a warrant approved by a judge, which in fact was the case on the night of May 20. If his lawyer believes the judge acted improperly, then he can seek relief in court, like any other citizen whose property has been searched and seized in a criminal investigation.

George Bush's intervention in a case being handled by career FBI agents and prosecutors is in many respects the real cause for concern. The Justice Department's Criminal Division operates with a firewall between it and the White House for good reason, particularly at a time when corruption investigations are taking place. For the president to jump into a case because congressional representatives are distressed with how they are being handled sends a chilling message to the Justice Department and confirms the most cynical attitudes in the land that the law is not applied evenly to politicians. On the heels of the Bush action, it was revealed that not just his appointees to the Justice Department were threatening to quit if the materials were returned to Congress, but many non-political, career lawyers at the Justice Department were heading for the door, too. For members of Congress who are in a lather about searches on Capitol Hill, do us all a favor and save your outrage for this administration's war in Iraq, where the Congress has really been missing in action.

What a sight — a Congress that's been AWOL for years suddenly "turning itself in" on an issue like this.

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