Absolutely stupid. The defense has been that those documents are between him and his constituents, and need to be kept secret. Of course, ignoring the fact that he’s been indicted on abusing his power by taking bribes as Congressman.

The good news here is that he was indicted on evidence not obtained in the raid, so it won’t affect this specific case. However, CREW (whom I agree with for once) believes it may affect other cases:

Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) said today, “This ruling is unlikely to affect the prosecution of Rep. Jefferson, given that the government indicted him without relying on material obtained during this search.” Sloan continued, “Nevertheless, this ruling may have a profound impact on the government’s ability to thoroughly investigate other cases of congressional corruption. For example, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) now has every incentive to store in his congressional office any document concerning the renovations of his house, secure in the knowledge that it will be beyond the reach of federal investigators.”

I think this goes beyond Stevens, as well. Stevens has had his house raided already, so allegedly the FBI has evidence on something. My concern is future corruption. If the FBI has a tip about corruption, all the potentially-corrupt member would have to do, is hide all of it in his/her office.

The ruling is great for the corrupt members of Congress…bad for regular Americans.