Fw: Congress Has No Power to Investigate Pardons

Nathan Newman nathan at newman.org
Wed Feb 28 05:01:31 PST 2001


Just had this come across my computer. It actually makes a compelling case that the criminal actors in the whole pardon scandal are Dan Burton and the Congressional investigators who are abusing their subpeona power without any legal authority. We've been taking "contempt of Congress" threats so much for granted in the last couple of years that it seemed normal, but as the article notes, since Congress has no role in pardons, they have no legislative oversight and therefore no power to investigate in a quasi-judicial way.

-- Nathan Newman

----- Original Message ----- From: "Len Wilson" <lbw at cougar.com>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A90-2001Feb27.html

A Pardon Probe? It's None of Congress's Business

As the permanent cadre of congressional Clinton pursuers

embarks on a new and virulent campaign of investigation

into presidential pardons, there is another casualty: the

constitutional basis of Congress's power to investigate.

Contrary to the assertions of the army of legal and

political pundits that the congressional investigative

orgy is a justifiable exercise of legislative oversight

under Article I of the Constitution, there is absolutely

no legal authority for such a proposition. Congress's

power to investigate and conduct oversight inheres in its

legislative power.

Congress may investigate only as an auxiliary to its

power to pass laws or perform other tasks placed by

Article I explicitly within its power. While such a power

is admittedly broad -- precisely because the reach of

Congress's power to legislate is so vast -- it is not

without limits.

The pardon power has been reserved under Article II to the

president, and as every legal expert and even the members

of Congress leading the charge have conceded, the so-called

"abuse of discretion" by the president, particularly

for those already pardoned, as the Supreme Court has

delineated, is not a subject "on which legislation could

be had" (McGrain v. Daugherty, 1926).

How then, and on what constitutional basis, does Congress

inquire into the exercise of discretion by the president

under a power committed exclusively to him?

This is not even a shared power -- like war powers,

executive or judicial appointments or the conduct and

review of foreign policy -- where the branches must reach

an accommodation because the Constitution gives each a

role. An integral part of the separation of powers is the

withdrawal from purview by coordinate branches of certain

matters -- admittedly few in number -- that the Framers

deemed necessary to insulate from the general scheme of

checks and balances.

So, for example, the Constitution states that members

of Congress shall "not be questioned in any other place"

for their legislative acts -- a provision interpreted by

the Supreme Court to immunize members from any judicial or

executive oversight of such acts. The court has remarked

that the Speech or Debate Clause has "enabled reckless

men to slander and even destroy others with impunity,

but that was the conscious choice of the Framers."

The exclusive commitment of the pardon power to the

president was also a "conscious choice," and legislative

revulsion at its use does not supply the constitutional

authority to challenge it. The Constitution similarly

grants the House and Senate the exclusive power to make

their own rules -- even if those rules are arbitrary,

unreasonable or contrary to sound policy. Finally,

some have suggested that Congress needs to conduct

investigations into the pardons so that the public can

be informed about the president's reasons for granting

them. There is no such power.

In 1979, the Supreme Court ruled unequivocally in former

senator William Proxmire's libel case that Congress has

power only to inform itself to enable it to write laws and

that there is no constitutionally based "informing power"

benefiting the general public.

As we learned in the 1950s and 1960s, when Congress tears

loose from its constitutionally authorized investigative

power the courts strike down those forays as excessive,

which diminishes Congress's ability to perform legitimate

and needed oversight in areas that truly warrant it. The

writer was general counsel to the House of Representatives

from 1976 to 1984. ---



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