Washington ? Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Sunday the FBI was within its right to search the office of a congressman accused of bribery – despite protests from House members on both sides of the aisle.

“No House member, no senator, nobody in government should be above the law of the land, period,” Frist said.

Frist, a Republican, was responding to the search conducted May 20-21 in the office of Democratic Rep. William Jefferson. FBI agents carted away computer and other records in their pursuit of evidence that Jefferson accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for helping set up business deals in Africa.

It was the first time that a warrant had been used to search a lawmaker’s office in the history of the Congress.

Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi responded with a rare joint statement, protesting that the FBI had not notified them and that the search violated the Constitution’s separation of power protections.