Investigating Congress

As I'm sure everyone's seen, the FBI's recent raid on the offices of Rep. William Jefferson (D-La) is raising a lot of hackles. The Republican leadership of the House of Representatives is protesting the action as a flouting of the Constitution (specifically, the supposed immunity of the legislative branch from executive-branch oversight), Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is threatening to resign if the FBI has to return what they took, Bush has sealed the records until this can get hashed out.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Ma) is now weighing in, too, and pointing out an irony at the politicized heart of the matter:

I disagree with the bipartisan House leadership criticism of the FBI's search of a Member's office. I know nothing specifically about the case, except that the uncontroverted public evidence did seem to justify the issuance of a warrant.

What we now have is a Congressional leadership, the Republican part of which has said it is okay for law enforcement to engage in warrantless searches of the average citizen, now objecting when a search, pursuant to a validly issued warrant, is conducted of a Member of Congress.

Forget who watches the watchers: who watches the watchers of the watched?

(Via Talking Points Memo.)