Washington, D.C.
FBI agents last week raided the Capitol Hill office of Rep. William Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat, looking for evidence implicating him in a bribery investigation. Legal experts said it appeared to be the first time such a police action was carried out on congressional grounds. In an affidavit supporting its court request to search Jefferson’s office, the FBI said it had videotaped him accepting $100,000 from an undercover informant, and that agents had recovered $90,000 a few days later, hidden in Jefferson’s freezer at home. Democrats and Republican lawmakers complained that the raid violated the separation of powers doctrine, since it was carried out by an executive branch agency. Jefferson, who has denied any wrongdoing, called the search an “outrageous intrusion.”
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