In 2006, the FBI got a search warrant and searched the office of William Jefferson (D-LA), looking for evidence in their investigation into whether he had accepted bribes. This sparked a huge firestorm, with legislators claiming that the separation of powers principle (and the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constutition) made such a search illegal. Ultimately, the search was deemed illegal, and Representative Jefferson was allowed to look through the materials taken and decide which “pertained to his work as a legislator^[a].”

Before the three-judge appelate court overturned his decision, though, Judge Thomas F. Hogan ruled that the search was legal (this wasn’t particularly surprising, since he issued the warrant). In his ruling, Hogan explained why he felt the search was legal:

“If there is any threat to the separation of powers here, it is not from the execution of a search warrant by one co-equal branch of government upon another, after the independent approval of the third separate, and co-equal branch,” he wrote. “Rather, the principle of the separation of powers is threatened by the position that the legislative branch enjoys the unilateral and unreviewable power to invoke an absolute privilege, thus making it immune from the ordinary criminal process of a validly issued search warrant.”

Emphasis Mine

That sounds pretty solid to me, and I like the idea that two branches of the government have the power to investigate the third much more than I like the idea that members of the legislative branch are, essentially, immune to prosecution (or, at least, immune to having evidence gathered from their workplace), regardless of how many other branches of the government might suspect something fishy is going on.

Keep that in mind when you read this article, which details a vote to cite Karl Rove for Contempt of Congress. The White House claims that Congress has no authority to force employees to testify. Democratic Congressmen, obviously, disagree.

Let’s review. According to Democrats, the executive and judicial branches, together, do not have the authority to actively investigate corruption in the legislative branch. On the other hand, if anyone from the executive branch declines to roll over and confess to whatever the hell they want him to^[b], the legislative branch can cite them for committing a crime.

UPDATE: Big Lizards has more on the same topic:

That, of course, is just how the Democrats see things… today. But a few short years ago, when they were in the White House and the GOP controlled both chambers on Capitol Hill, they had a very different idea: They believed that the Executive should be supreme, and the Legislature and Judiciary subservient. President Bill Clinton repeatedly invoked “executive privilege” to shield his administration and especially himself from congressional scrutiny.

The unbroken thread that connects these two positions is that Democrats believe they, as a party, should always command all power in the United States, while their “enemies” (the Republicans) should be utterly impotent. By contrast, Republicans have consistently argued that no branch should be superior to the others; that the Founders were right to make the branches coequal… and they should stay that way.

Read the whole thing.

1. Needless to say, anything that evidenced bribery would certainly have pertained to his work as a legislator, so the ruling effectively removed any evidence that the FBI could have found from any court proceedings. [↩]
2. Note that Rove has testified, and flatly denies that he was involved in any of these decisions by the Justice department [↩]