Breach Was More of the Spirit, Not the Letter, of the Constitution

That same year, the court ruled that a Senate aide, though covered by the Speech and Debate Clause, had to respond to a grand jury subpoena to answer questions about whether Sen. Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) had violated federal law by arranging for a private book publisher to print the Pentagon Papers. (The Justice Department later dropped the case.)

In 1979, the court ruled that Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wis.) could be sued for defamation by a scientist whose work he had mocked in a news release and newsletter.

But it also ruled in a separate case that the government could not use a House member's past votes or speeches as evidence of his motive for committing an alleged offense.

And a federal appeals court in Philadelphia ruled that the Justice Department was not entitled to look through the telephone records of a member of Congress.

An FBI agent's affidavit released by the Justice Department in the Jefferson case noted that the search team adopted "special procedures in order to minimize the likelihood that any potentially politically sensitive, non-responsive items in the Office will be seized."

The search warrant was approved by a high-ranking judicial officer, Thomas F. Hogan, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Washington.

But Stanley M. Brand, who was counsel to the House of Representatives from 1976 to 1983, said that "the problem is who watches them when they rummage to make sure they are not looking at legislative records."

FBI agents barred the House general counsel and the sergeant at arms from the rooms it was searching.