WASHINGTON, May 24 (Xinhua) -- Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Dennis Hastert said on Wednesday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) should return the documents it seized from a lawmaker's office over the weekend.

    Hastert, a Republican from Illinois, said the documents seized by the FBI from Democratic Representative William Jefferson's office on Capitol Hill last Saturday night ought to be returned, and FBI agents involved in the search should be removed from the case, "just for the sake of the constitutional aspects of it."

    On Tuesday, Hastert complained personally to Bush at the White House about the search. "My opinion is that they (the FBI) took the wrong path," he said after meeting with Bush.

    "They need to back up, and we need to go from there," he said.

    FBI agents searched Jefferson's congressional office for evidence in a bribery investigation. The search warrant was issued on the basis of an affidavit saying agents found 90,000 U.S. dollars' cash in the freezer of Jefferson's home.

    Members of Congress from both parties have protested the raid, which they said violated the Constitution's separation of powers doctrine.

    Jefferson, from Louisiana, who serves in the House Ways and Means Committee, has not been indicted and has denied wrongdoing. He refused to resign from the panel despite a call from the Democratic Party leadership for him to do so.

    The investigation of Jefferson was made public last August, when the FBI raided his homes in Washington and New Orleans. The case caught public attention this week after the FBI searched his office and disclosed they had earlier found 90,000 dollars in cashin his freezer.

    Meanwhile, Jefferson filed a motion on Wednesday asking U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan, who issued the search warrant last week, to order the FBI to return all of the documents taken from his office and prohibit FBI and Justice Department attorneys from reviewing them.

    News reports said it was the first time that a U.S. lawmaker's office was raided in the history of the Congress. Enditem