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*, and before him Clinton, and before him Bush I, and before him Reagan ... have all, to one extent or another, been concerned about making sure the president had the authority and power than each deemed appropriate. Some ceded power in some areas while going to the mat in others. The result was that since FDR's day the Congress gained in importance. The term of art in the press for a while was 'imperial presidency'. There is no perfect balance of powers; there are merely compromises, all within the limits of what is considered, at least at the time, Constitutional. FDR, IMHO, exceeded what he should have done; others may disagree, and that's fine.
* is fighting hard to reclaim the imperial presidency, or at least some akin to it; he and his folk believe that the optimum balance has more authority given to the presidency, and less to Congress. For this reason they fought like cats and dogs over *Clinton's* files, when Clinton had no beef about it. Everybody thought that * was quasi-insane; but it's consistent with what him and his Constitution-gurus have said straight along. Hastert and Congress like the balance, more or less, but would, of course, like it to swing more in their direction. Pretty much every time * (or before him, Clinton) assert executive privilege, Congress, whether dem or repub, has pitched a fit. The Executive has little control over congress; congressional limitations have come at the expansion of the judiciary's power.
However, SCOTUS is concerned about their own power with this Congress; on the one hand, they're afraid that Congress will remove things from their jurisdiction--this would probably directly set Marbury, which is where SCOTUS asserted that they have judicial review authority, against a clause of the Constitution that, to my limited knowledge, has never been applied. SCOTUS is also pissed at the very idea of having a Congressional or executive oversight committee, something that must be completely unconstitutional--you know, like the Congressional 'intelligence oversight' committee? (Which brings us back to the 'unitary' idea--SCOTUS can't be governed by Congress, and the executive branch can't be excessively interfered with by either).
Now, the judiciary will also be pissed at Congress in the Jefferson matter; the judicial branch issued a subpoena, it seems, for certain (kinds of?) documents--and Congress rejected the subpoena. So the FBI's request for documents relating to a corruption investigation, and the court's subpoena, were both denied: Now the warrant issued based on probable cause is challenged. Keep in mind that in Abscam and other investigations Congressfolk alleged that separation of powers protected them, both from corruption charges, and from having documents subpoenaed; there is Constitutional protection, just not as they argue. If their argument holds, other, probably more severe problems, result. Keep in mind that all sorts of people have subpoenaed executive and legislative e-mails in the Plame and Delay cases. Judicial, Executive, and Congressional privilege don't include hiding felonies; it may all hinge on why Congress rejected the authority of the subpoena they received for Jefferson's documents, and the grounds for the warrant.
*'s seal will, no doubt, be left in place until everybody's looked over exactly what it is the law enforcement types did in searching Jefferson's office. Looking over documents relating to legislating is a big no-no. In Gonzalez's folk kept their noses clean and only looked at non-legislation-related documents (with Congress charging that the phone bills and the receipt for his chicken salad sandwich that day both count as 'legislation-related'), it'll be fine. The documents will be unsealed. Perhaps a judge will be asked to review them, to make sure they're ok.
Perhaps the issue is the actual search, not turning over documents (but that doesn't quite ring true, there must be more to it). But while it's a bad precedent to have a Congressman's office searched, it's also a bad precedent to assert, if this is indeed the case, that keeping evidence of felony-level corruption in your office amounts to a cloak of invisibility. In that case Jefferson's problem wasn't the alleged $90k in his freezer; it was that it was in his home freezer, instead of the fridge in his office.
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