Bush Orders Documents Taken By FBI From Congressional Office Sealed For 45 Days

Laurie Kellman for AP reports that Bush has ordered the seal of documents, which the FBI took from Congressman Jefferson's office last weekend as part of a criminal investigation. The raid and seizure of documents "was the first such search of a House or Senate member's office since the first Congress convened 219 years ago, " according to "historians" in the report. And it caused such massively aggrieved and bipartisan distress the last couple days - with Speaker Hastert and Minority Leader Pelosi joining together demanding return of the documents, and claiming a violation in "separation of powers" - that Bush has apparently felt obliged to "defuse an intensifying, election-year dispute between the Republican-led Congress and his administration." --- "Our government has not faced such a dilemma in more than two centuries," he [Bush] said in a statement. "Yet after days of discussions, it is clear these differences will require more time to be worked out." Bush granted one of Hastert's demands, directing the FBI to surrender documents and computerized records taken last weekend from the office of Rep. William Jefferson, D-La. He ordered Solicitor General Paul Clement, who has a separate office in the Justice Department, to take custody of them.