Washington ? Over nine days in May, FBI agents in the Washington area searched the offices of a lawmaker and the No. 3 CIA official in a flurry of activity that highlights a newly aggressive pursuit of public corruption cases by federal prosecutors and investigators.

The high-profile searches occurred in independent bribery investigations that implicate members of Congress, Republican and Democrat.

The raid on Democratic Rep. William Jefferson’s office over the weekend apparently was the first time FBI agents had ventured onto Capitol Hill armed with a search warrant.

Agents were accompanied by CIA minders when they scoured the Langley, Va., office of Kyle “Dusty” Foggo on May 12. Foggo has stepped down as the intelligence agency’s executive director, amid allegations that link him to a bribery investigation that already has sent former Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham to prison.

While the locations of the searches were unusual, James W. “Chip” Burrus Jr., head of the FBI’s criminal division, said his agents weren’t looking to make a splash. “We go where the evidence leads us,” Burruss said, while acknowledging that corruption investigators “have had a run of good luck lately.”

It is hard to know whether there is more or less public corruption afoot in the country now than in the past. “It’s always hard to measure the part of the iceberg that’s under the water,” said St. John’s University law professor John Barrett, a former prosecutor.

Cases up 25 percent

But it is clear that investigators are spending more time looking for corruption. More than 1,000 officials, military personnel and police officers have been convicted over two years, with a 25 percent increase from 2004 to 2005, the FBI said.

There are more than 2,200 open investigations on the federal, state and local level, and more than 600 agents work corruption cases, about a third of all agents dedicated to white-collar crime, Burrus said. That number has increased, he said, despite the bureau’s realignment since the Sept. 11 attacks to focus on counterterrorism investigations.

The bureau’s stepped-up effort has come partly as a result of the inactivity of congressional ethics committees, even in the face of serious bribery allegations. The FBI also has been relatively shielded from political considerations that have slowed pursuit of corruption in past administrations, said ethics watchdogs across the political spectrum.

“I think the Clinton administration would have been too scared to go after Tom DeLay, even though they should have, because they had a Republican-controlled Congress,” said Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor and executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “It seems clear that Justice is taking a more aggressive approach.”

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, which has tussled over ethics with the Bush and Clinton administrations, called the increase in public corruption cases notable. “It looks to me like appointees are less concerned about the political ramifications of their investigations,” Fitton said.

Federal authorities have at least three full-blown investigations under way dealing with congressional corruption. Disgraced GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff and three former Republican congressional aides-turned-lobbyists have pleaded guilty in one probe that reaches into several congressional offices, mostly Republicans.

Cunningham pleaded guilty to accepting bribes last year, and the FBI says Jefferson has been caught on tape taking $100,000 in cash, most of which was later found in a freezer in his Washington-area home. He has declared himself innocent of any wrongdoing.

In addition, two senior members of the House appropriations committee, Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., the chairman, and Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va., the sixth-ranking Democrat, are under investigation in connection with allegations that they directed public money to favored parties.

Suited for the task

FBI Director Robert Mueller, a former federal prosecutor, laid out the case for the FBI’s corruption focus in a recent speech in San Diego. “Rooting out corruption is exceptionally difficult, but it is a mission for which the FBI is singularly situated,” Mueller said. “We have the skills to conduct necessary undercover operations and the ability to perform electronic surveillance. But more than that, we have insulation from political pressure.”

Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales also has made corruption cases a priority within the Justice Department, saying he would allow his prosecutors to pursue criminal violations wherever they lead.

The active pursuit of these cases also is valuable because it provides elected and other officials an important element of deterrence, Barrett said. “We need incentives, beginning at the very basic level of fear, to keep them on the right side of these laws,” he said.