President Bush has stepped into the roiling feud between Congress and the Justice Department over the FBI’s weekend raid of Rep. William Jefferson’s (D-LA) congressional office and ordered the FBI to seal the documents for 45 days. According to the Associated Press:

The president directed that no one involved in the investigation have access to the documents taken last weekend from the office of Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., and that they remain in the custody of the solicitor general.

Bush’s move was described as an attempt to cool off a heated confrontation between his administration and leaders of the House and Senate.
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“Our government has not faced such a dilemma in more than two centuries,” the president said. “Yet after days of discussions, it is clear these differences will require more time to be worked out.”

This whole FBI raid has thrown everybody in Washington off script. It’s bizarre, but at the same time kind of refreshing to see politicians react to something that they didn’t already have a pre-scripted reaction to. I would love to have a fly on the wall when Bush and his aides discussed sealing the documents. What did Congress threaten them with?

Instapundit wonders, “Could Al Qaeda have slipped mind-altering drugs into the DC water supply? What’s gotten into these people? Or has some sort of deal been cut?” Since I haven’t seen any UFOs split the sky like a sheet today I would have to go with his latter hunch.