WASHINGTON – The House Judiciary Committee chairman, James Sensenbrenner, said yesterday he will summon Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the FBI’s director, Robert Mueller, before his panel to explain their decision to raid a lawmaker’s office for the first time in history.

“I want to have Attorney General Gonzales and FBI Director Mueller up here to tell us how they reached the conclusion they did,” said Sensenbrenner, one of President Bush’s most loyal House allies. Sensenbrenner’s hearings, which began yesterday, are examining whether the May 20 raid violated the Constitution.

Calling the decision to authorize the raid “profoundly disturbing,” Mr. Sensenbrenner signaled that he would not be among the lawmakers backing off their criticism of the administration. Any progress in talks between House and Justice Department lawyers in crafting guidelines for future criminal investigations of Congress would not deter Mr. Sensenbrenner from calling the administration to account for the search of Rep.William Jefferson’s offices.

“They didn’t get it right this time,” Mr. Sensenbrenner said.

The Justice Department filed court papers yesterday opposing the congressman’s demand that property seized in the office raid be returned. Such a step would be “fundamentally inconsistent with the bedrock principle that ‘the laws of this country allow no place or employment as a sanctuary for crime,'” the papers said, quoting language from a near century-old Supreme Court case.

Mr. Jefferson’s interpretation would remove courts from their traditional role of ruling on privilege claims and would subvert the principle that members of Congress are not immune from ordinary criminal procedures, the department said in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia.

While not defending Mr. Jefferson,Mr. Sensenbrenner made clear his opposition to the raid on constitutional grounds, titling yesterday’s hearing “Reckless Justice: Did the Saturday Night Raid of Congress Trample the Constitution?”