No provision of the Constitution expressly authorizes either House of Congress to make investigations and exact testimony to the end that it may exercise its legislative functions effectively and advisedly. But such a power had been frequently exercised by the British Parliament and by the Assemblies of the American Colonies prior to the adoption of the Constitution.185 It was asserted by the House of Representatives as early as 1792 when it appointed a committee to investigate the defeat of General St. Clair and his army by the Indians in the Northwest and empowered it to “call for such persons, papers, and records, as may be necessary to assist their inquiries.”186
185 Landis, Constitutional Limitations on the Congressional Power of Investigation, 40 HARV. L. REV. 153, 159–166 (1926); M. DIMOCK, CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATING COMMITTEES ch. 2 (1929).
The Court has long since accorded its agreement with Congress that the investigatory power is so essential to the legislative function as to be implied from the general vesting of legislative power in Congress. “We are of the opinion,” wrote Justice Van Devanter, for a unanimous Court, “that the power of inquiry—with process to enforce it—is an essential and appropriate auxiliary to the legislative function.... A legislative body cannot legislate wisely or effectively in the absence of information respecting the conditions which the legislation is intended to affect or change; and where the legislative body does not itself possess the requisite information—which not infrequently is true—recourse must be had to others who possess it. Experience has taught that mere requests for such information often are unavailing, and also that information which is volunteered is not always accurate or complete; so some means of compulsion are essential to obtain what is needed. All this was true before and when the Constitution was framed and adopted. In that period the power of inquiry—with enforcing process—was regarded and employed as a necessary and appropriate attribute of the power to legislate—indeed, was treated as inhering in it. Thus there is ample warrant for thinking, as we do, that the constitutional provisions which commit the legislative function to the two houses are intended to include this attribute to the end that the function may be effectively exercised.”187
And in a 1957 opinion generally hostile to the exercise of the investigatory power in the post-War years, Chief Justice Warren did not question the basic power. “The power of the Congress to conduct investigations is inherent in the legislative process. That power is broad. It encompasses inquiries concerning the administration of existing laws as well as proposed or possibly needed statutes. It includes surveys of defects in our social, economic or political system for the purpose of enabling the Congress to remedy them. It comprehends probes into departments of the Federal Government to expose corruption, inefficiency or waste.”188 Justice Harlan summarized the matter in 1959. “The power of inquiry has been employed by Congress throughout our history, over the whole range of the national interests concerning which Congress might legislate or decide upon due investigation not to legislate; it has similarly been utilized in determining what to appropriate from the national purse, or whether to appropriate. The scope of the power of inquiry, in short, is as penetrating and far-reaching as the potential power to enact and appropriate under the Constitution.”189
186 3 ANNALS OF CONGRESS 490–494 (1792); 3 A. HINDS’ PRECEDENTS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 1725 (1907).
187 McGrain v. Daugherty, 273 U.S. 135, 174–175 (1927).
188 Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178, 187 (1957).
Broad as the power of inquiry is, it is not unlimited. The power of investigation may properly be employed only “in aid of the legislative function.”190 Its outermost boundaries are marked, then, by the outermost boundaries of the power to legislate. In principle, the Court is clear on the limitations, clear “that neither house of Congress possesses a ‘general power of making inquiry into the private affairs of the citizen’; that the power actually possessed is limited to inquiries relating to matters of which the particular house ‘has jurisdiction’ and in respect of which it rightfully may take other action; that if the inquiry relates to ‘a matter wherein relief or redress could be had only by a judicial proceeding’ it is not within the range of this power, but must be left to the courts, conformably to the constitutional separation of governmental powers; and that for the purpose of determining the essential character of the inquiry recourse must be had to the resolution or order under which it is made.”191
In practice, much of the litigated dispute has been about the reach of the power to inquire into the activities of private citizens; inquiry into the administration of laws and departmental corruption, while of substantial political consequence, has given rise to fewer judicial precedents.
189 Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U.S. 109, 111 (1959). See also Eastland v. United States Servicemen’s Fund, 421 U.S. 491, 503–507 (1975).
190 Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U.S. 168, 189 (1881).
191 McGrain v. Daugherty, 273 U.S. 135, 170 (1927). The internal quotations are from Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U.S. 168, 190, 193 (1881).
For many years the investigating function of Congress was limited to inquiries into the administration of the Executive Department or of instrumentalities of the Government. Until the administration of Andrew Jackson this power was not seriously challenged.192 During the controversy over renewal of the charter of the Bank of the United States, John Quincy Adams contended that an unlimited inquiry into the operations of the bank would be beyond the power of the House.193 Four years later the legislative power of investigation was challenged by the President. A committee appointed by the House of Representatives “with power to send for persons and papers, and with instructions to inquire into the condition of the various executive departments, the ability and integrity with which they have been conducted, . . .”194 called upon the President and the heads of departments for lists of persons appointed without the consent of the Senate and the amounts paid to them. Resentful of this attempt “to invade the just rights of the Executive Departments,” the President refused to comply and the majority of the committee acquiesced.195 Nevertheless, congressional investigations of Executive Departments have continued to the present day. Shortly before the Civil War, contempt proceedings against a witness who refused to testify in an investigation of John Brown’s raid upon the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry occasioned a thorough consideration by the Senate of the basis of this power. After a protracted debate, which cut sharply across sectional and party lines, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to imprison the contumacious witness.196 Notwithstanding this firmly established legislative practice, the Supreme Court took a narrow view of the power in the case of Kilbourn v. Thompson.197 It held that the House of Representatives had overstepped its jurisdiction when it instituted an investigation of losses suffered by the United States as a creditor of Jay Cooke and Company, whose estate was being administered in bankruptcy by a federal court.198 But nearly half a century later, in McGrain v. Daugherty,199 it ratified in sweeping terms, the power of Congress to inquire into the administration of an executive department and to sift charges of malfeasance in such administration.200
192 In 1800, Secretary of the Treasury, Oliver Wolcott, Jr., addressed a letter to the House of Representatives advising them of his resignation from office and inviting an investigation of his office. Such an inquiry was made. 10 ANNALS OF CONGRESS 786–788 (1800).
193 8 CONG. DEB. 2160 (1832).
194 13 CONG. DEB. 1057–1067 (1836).
195 H. R. Rep. No. 194, 24th Congress, 2d sess., 1, 12, 31 (1837).
196 CONG. GLOBE, 36th Congress, 1st sess., 1100–1109 (1860).
197 103 U.S. 168 (1881).
198 The Court held that inasmuch as the entire proceedings arising out of the bankruptcy were pending in court, as the authorizing resolution contained no suggestion of contemplated legislation, as in fact no valid legislation could be enacted on the subject, and as the only relief which the United States could seek was judicial relief in the bankruptcy proceeding, the House had exceeded its powers in authorizing the inquiry. But see Hutcheson v. United States, 369 U.S. 599 (1962).
199 273 U.S. 135, 177, 178 (1927).
200 We consider elsewhere the topic of executive privilege, the claimed right of the President and at least some of his executive branch officers to withhold from Congress information desired by it or by one of its committees. Although the issue has been one of contention between the two branches of Government since Washing-ton’s refusal in 1796 to submit certain correspondence to the House of Representatives relating to treaty negotiations, it has only recently become a judicial issue.
When either House exercises a judicial function, as in judging of elections or determining whether a member should be expelled, it is clearly entitled to compel the attendance of witnesses to disclose the facts upon which its action must be based. Thus, the Court held that since a House had a right to expel a member for any offense which it deemed incompatible with his trust and duty as a member, it was entitled to investigate such conduct and to summon private individuals to give testimony concerning it.201 The decision in Barry v. United States ex rel. Cunningham202 sanctioned the exercise of a similar power in investigating a senatorial election.
Purpose.—Beginning with the resolution adopted by the House of Representatives in 1827, which vested its Committee on Manufactures “with the power to send for persons and papers with a view to ascertain and report to this House in relation to a revision of the tariff duties on imported goods,”203 the two Houses have asserted the right to collect information from private persons as well as from governmental agencies when necessary to enlighten their judgment on proposed legislation. The first case to review the assertion saw a narrow view of the power taken and the Court held that the purpose of the inquiry was to pry improperly into private affairs without any possibility of legislating on the basis of what might be learned and further that the inquiry overstepped the bounds of legislative jurisdiction and invaded the provinces of the judiciary.204
Subsequent cases, however, have given the Congress the benefit of a presumption that its object is legitimate and related to the possible enactment of legislation. Shortly after Kilbourn, the Court declared that “it was certainly not necessary that the resolution should declare in advance what the Senate meditated doing when the investigation was concluded” in order that the inquiry be under a lawful exercise of power.205 Similarly, in McGrain v. Daugherty,206 the investigation was presumed to have been undertaken in good faith to aid the Senate in legislating. Then, in Sinclair v. United States,207 on its facts presenting a close parallel to Kilbourn, the Court affirmed the right of the Senate to carry out investigations of fraudulent leases of government property after suit for recovery had been instituted. The president of the lessee corporation had refused to testify on the ground that the questions related to his private affairs and to matters cognizable only in the courts wherein they were pending, asserting that the inquiry was not actually in aid of legislation. The Senate had prudently directed the investigating committee to ascertain what, if any, legislation might be advisable. Conceding “that Congress is without authority to compel disclosures for the purpose of aiding the prosecution of pending suits,” the Court declared that the authority “to require pertinent disclosures in aid of its own constitutional power is not abridged because the information sought to be elicited may also be of use in such suits.”208
201 In re Chapman, 166 U.S. 661 (1897).
202 279 U.S. 597 (1929).
203 4 CONG. DEB. 862, 868, 888, 889 (1827).
204 Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U.S. 168 (1881).
205 In re Chapman, 166 U.S. 661, 670 (1897).
206 273 U.S. 135, 178 (1927).
207 279 U.S. 263 (1929).
208 279 U.S. at 295.
While Sinclair and McGrain involved inquiries into the activities and dealings of private persons, these activities and dealings were in connection with property belonging to the United States Government, so that it could hardly be said that the inquiries concerned the merely personal or private affairs of any individual.209
But where the business, the activities and conduct, the behavior of individuals are subject to congressional regulation, there exists the power of inquiry,210 and in practice the areas of any individual’s life immune from inquiry are probably fairly limited. “In the decade following World War II, there appeared a new kind of congressional inquiry unknown in prior periods of American history. Principally this was the result of the various investigations into the threat of subversion of the United States Government, but other subjects of congressional interest also contributed to the changed scene. This new phase of legislative inquiry involved a broad-scale intrusion into the lives and affairs of private citizens.”211 Inasmuch as Congress clearly has power to legislate to protect the Nation and its citizens from subversion, espionage, and sedition,212 it has power to inquire into the existence of the dangers of domestic or foreign-based subversive activities in many areas of American life—in education,213 in labor and industry,214 and other areas.215 Because its powers to regulate interstate commerce afford Congress the power to regulate corruption in labor-management relations, congressional committees may inquire into the extent of corruption in labor unions.216 Because of its powers to legislate to protect the civil rights of its citizens, Congress may investigate organizations which allegedly act to deny those civil rights.217 It is difficult in fact to conceive of areas into which congressional inquiry might not be carried, which is not the same, of course, as saying that the exercise of the power is unlimited.
209 279 U.S. at 294.
210 The first case so holding is ICC v. Brimson, 154 U.S. 447 (1894), which asserts that inasmuch as Congress could itself have made the inquiry to appraise its regulatory activities it could delegate the power of inquiry to the agency to which it had delegated the regulatory function.
211 Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178, 195 (1957).
212 See Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 (1951); Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U.S. 109, 127 (1959); American Communications Ass’n v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382 (1950).
213 Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U.S. 109, 129–132 (1959); Deutch v. United States, 367 U.S. 456 (1961); cf. Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234 (1957) (state inquiry).
214 Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178 (1957); Flaxer v. United States, 358 U.S. 147 (1958); Wilkinson v. United States, 365 U.S. 399 (1961).
215 McPhaul v. United States, 364 U.S. 372 (1960).
216 Hutcheson v. United States, 369 U.S. 599 (1962).
217 Shelton v. United States, 404 F.2d 1292 (D.C. Cir. 1968), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 1024 (1969).
One limitation on the power of inquiry which has been much discussed in the cases concerns the contention that congressional investigations often have no legislative purpose but rather are aimed at achieving results through “exposure” of disapproved persons and activities: “We have no doubt,” wrote Chief Justice Warren, “that there is no congressional power to expose for the sake of exposure.”218 Although some Justices, always in dissent, have attempted to assert limitations in practice based upon this concept, the majority of Justices has adhered to the traditional precept that courts will not inquire into legislators’ motives but will look219 only to the question of power.220 “So long as Congress acts in pursuance of its constitutional power, the Judiciary lacks authority to intervene on the basis of the motives which spurred the exercise of that power.”221
218 Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178, 200 (1957). The Chief Justice, however, noted: “We are not concerned with the power of the Congress to inquire into and publicize corruption, maladministration or inefficiency in agencies of the Government. That was the only kind of activity described by Woodrow Wilson in Congressional Government when he wrote: ‘The informing function of Congress should be preferred even to its legislative function.’ Id. at 303. From the earliest times in its history, the Congress has assiduously performed an ‘informing function’ of this nature.” Id. at 200 n. 33.
In his book, Wilson continued, following the sentence quoted by the Chief Justice: “The argument is not only that discussed and interrogated administration is the only pure and efficient administration, but, more than that, that the only really self-governing people is that people which discusses and interrogates its administration.... It would be hard to conceive of there being too much talk about the practical concerns . . . of government.” Congressional Government (1885), 303–304. For contrasting views of the reach of this statement, compare United States v. Rumely, 345 U.S. 41, 43 (1953), with Russell v. United States, 369 U.S. 749, 777–778 (1962) (Justice Douglas dissenting).
219 Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U.S. 109, 153–162, 166 (1959); Wilkinson v. United States, 365 U.S. 399, 415, 423 (1961); Braden v. United States, 365 U.S. 431, 446 (1961); but see DeGregory v. Attorney General, 383 U.S. 825 (1966) (a state investigative case).
Protection of Witnesses; Pertinency and Related Matters.—A witness appearing before a congressional committee is entitled to require of the committee a demonstration of its authority to inquire with regard to his activities and a showing that the questions asked of him are pertinent to the committee’s area of inquiry. A congressional committee possesses only those powers delegated to it by its parent body. The enabling resolution that has given it life also contains the grant and limitations of the commit-tee’s power.222 In Watkins v. United States,223 Chief Justice Warren cautioned that “[b]roadly drafted and loosely worded . . . resolutions can leave tremendous latitude to the discretion of the investigators. The more vague the committee’s charter is, the greater becomes the possibility that the committee’s specific actions are not in conformity with the will of the parent House of Congress.” Speaking directly of the authorizing resolution, which created the House Un-American Activities Committee,224 the Chief Justice thought it “difficult to imagine a less explicit authorizing resolution.”225 But the far-reaching implications of these remarks were circumscribed by Barenblatt v. United States,226 in which the Court, “[g]ranting the vagueness of the Rule,” noted that Congress had long since put upon it a persuasive gloss of legislative history through practice and interpretation, which, read with the enabling resolution, showed that “the House has clothed the Un-American Activities Committee with pervasive authority to investigate Communist activities in this country.”227 “[W]e must conclude that [the Committee’s] authority to conduct the inquiry presently under consideration is unassailable, and that . . . the Rule cannot be said to be constitutionally infirm on the score of vagueness.”228
220 “Legislative committees have been charged with losing sight of their duty of disinterestedness. In times of political passion, dishonest or vindicative motives are readily attributable to legislative conduct and as readily believed. Courts are not the place for such controversies.” Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U.S. 367, 377–378 (1951). For a statement of the traditional unwillingness to inquire into congressional motives in the judging of legislation, see United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 382– 386 (1968). But note that in Jenkins v. McKeithen, 395 U.S. 411 (1969), in which the legislation establishing a state crime investigating commission clearly authorized the commission to designate individuals as law violators, due process was violated by denying witnesses the rights existing in adversary criminal proceedings.
221 Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U.S. 109, 132 (1959).
222 United States v. Rumely, 345 U.S. 41, 44 (1953).
223 354 U.S. 178, 201 (1957).
224 The Committee has since been abolished.
225 Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178, 202 (1957).
226 360 U.S. 109 (1959).
227 360 U.S. at 117–18.
228 360 U.S. at 122–23. But note that in Stamler v. Willis, 415 F. 2d 1365 (7th Cir. 1969), cert. denied, 399 U.S. 929 (1970), the court ordered to trial a civil suit contesting the constitutionality of the Rule establishing the Committee on allegations of overbreadth and overbroad application, holding that Barenblatt did not fore-close the contention.
Because of the usual precision with which authorizing resolutions have generally been drafted, few controversies have arisen about whether a committee has projected its inquiry into an area not sanctioned by the parent body.229 But in United States v. Rumely,230 the Court held that the House of Representatives, in authorizing a select committee to investigate lobbying activities devoted to the promotion or defeat of legislation, did not thereby intend to empower the committee to probe activities of a lobbyist that were unconnected with his representations directly to Congress but rather designed to influence public opinion by distribution of literature. Consequently the committee was without authority to compel the representative of a private organization to disclose the names of all who had purchased such literature in quantity.231
Still another example of lack of proper authority is Gojack v. United States,232 in which the Court reversed a contempt citation because there was no showing that the parent committee had delegated to the subcommittee before whom the witness had appeared the authority to make the inquiry and neither had the full committee specified the area of inquiry.
Watkins v. United States,233 remains the leading case on pertinency, although it has not the influence on congressional investigations that some hoped and some feared in the wake of its announcement. When questioned by a Subcommittee of the House Un-American Activities Committee, Watkins refused to supply the names of past associates, who, to his knowledge, had terminated their membership in the Communist Party and supported his non-compliance by, inter alia, contending that the questions were unrelated to the work of the Committee. Sustaining the witness, the Court emphasized that inasmuch as a witness by his refusal exposes himself to a criminal prosecution for contempt, he is entitled to be informed of the relation of the question to the subject of the investigation with the same precision as the due process clause requires of statutes defining crimes.234
229 But see Tobin v. United States, 306 F. 2d 270 (D.C. Cir. 1962), cert. denied, 371 U.S. 902 (1962).
230 345 U.S. 41 (1953).
231 The Court intimated that if the authorizing resolution did confer such power upon the committee, the validity of the resolution would be subject to doubt on First Amendment principles. Justices Black and Douglas would have construed the resolution as granting the authority and would have voided it under the First Amendment. 345 U.S. at 48 (concurring opinion).
232 384 U.S. 702 (1966).
233 354 U.S. 178 (1957).
234 354 U.S. at 208–09.
For ascertainment of the subject matter of an investigation, the witness might look, noted the Court, to several sources, including (1) the authorizing resolution, (2) the resolution by which the full committee authorized the subcommittee to proceed, (3) the introductory remarks of the chairman or other members, (4) the nature of the proceedings, (5) the chairman’s response to the witness when the witness objects to the line of question on grounds of pertinency.235 Whether a precise delineation of the subject matter of the investigation in but one of these sources would satisfy the requirements of due process was left unresolved, since the Court ruled that in this case all of them were deficient in providing Watkins with the guidance to which he was entitled. The sources had informed Watkins that the questions were asked in a course of investigation of something that ranged from a narrow inquiry into Communist infiltration into the labor movement to a vague and unlimited inquiry into “subversion and subversive propaganda.”236
By and large, the subsequent cases demonstrated that Watkins did not represent a determination by the Justices to restrain broadly the course of congressional investigations, though several contempt citations were reversed on narrow holdings. But with regard to pertinency, the implications of Watkins were held in check and, without amending its rules or its authorizing resolution, the Un-American Activities Committee was successful in convincing a majority of the Court that its subsequent investigations were authorized and that the questions asked of recalcitrant witnesses were pertinent to the inquiries.237
235 354 U.S. at 209–15.
236 Id. See also Sacher v. United States, 356 U.S. 576 (1958), a per curiam reversal of a contempt conviction on the ground that the questions did not relate to a subject “within the subcommittee’s scope of inquiry,” arising out of a hearing pertaining to a recantation of testimony by a witness in which the inquiry drifted into a discussion of legislation barring Communists from practice at the federal bar, the unanswered questions being asked then; and Flaxer v. United States, 358 U.S. 147 (1958), a reversal for refusal to produce membership lists because of an ambiguity in the committee’s ruling on the time of performance; and Scull v. Virginia ex rel. Committee, 359 U.S. 344 (1959), a reversal on a contempt citation before a state legislative investigating committee on pertinency grounds.
237 Notice should be taken, however, of two cases which, though decided four and five years after Watkins, involved persons who were witnesses before the Un-American Activities Committee either shortly prior to or shortly following Watkins’ appearance and who were cited for contempt before the Supreme Court decided Watkins’ case.
In Deutch v. United States, 367 U.S. 456 (1961), involving an otherwise cooperative witness who had refused to identify certain persons with whom he had been associated at Cornell in Communist Party activities, the Court agreed that Deutch had refused on grounds of moral scruples to answer the questions and had not challenged them as not pertinent to the inquiry, but the majority ruled that the Government had failed to establish at trial the pertinency of the questions, thus vitiating the conviction. Justices Frankfurter, Clark, Harlan, and Whittaker dissented, arguing that any argument on pertinency had been waived but in any event thinking it had been established. Id. at 472, 475.
In Russell v. United States, 369 U.S. 749 (1962), the Court struck down contempt convictions for insufficiency of the indictments. Indictments, which merely set forth the offense in the words of the contempt statute, the Court asserted, in alleging that the unanswered questions were pertinent to the subject under inquiry but not identifying the subject in detail, are defective because they do not inform defendants what they must be prepared to meet and do not enable courts to decide whether the facts alleged are sufficient to support convictions. Justice Stewart for the Court noted that the indicia of subject matter under inquiry were varied and contradictory, thus necessitating a precise governmental statement of particulars. Justices Harlan and Clark in dissent contended that it was sufficient for the Government to establish pertinency at trial and noted that no objections relating to pertinency had been made at the hearings. Id. at 781, 789–793. Russell was cited in the per curiam reversals in Grumman v. United States, 370 U.S. 288 (1962), and Silber v. United States, 370 U.S. 717 (1962).
Thus, in Barenblatt v. United States,238 the Court concluded that the history of the Un-American Activities Committee’s activities, viewed in conjunction with the Rule establishing it, evinced clear investigatory authority to inquire into Communist infiltration in the field of education, an authority with which the witness had shown familiarity. Additionally, the opening statement of the chairman had pinpointed that subject as the nature of the inquiry that day and the opening witness had testified on the subject and had named Barenblatt as a member of the Communist Party at the University of Michigan. Thus, pertinency and the witness’ knowledge of the pertinency of the questions asked him was shown. Similarly, in Wilkinson v. United States,239 the Court held that when the witness was apprised at the hearing that the Committee was empowered to investigate Communist infiltration of the textile industry in the South, that it was gathering information with a view to ascertaining the manner of administration and need to amend various laws directed at subversive activities, that Congress hitherto had enacted many of its recommendations in this field, and that it was possessed of information about his Party membership, he was notified effectively that a question about that affiliation was relevant to a valid inquiry. A companion case was held to be controlled by Wilkinson,240 and in both cases the majority rejected the contention that the Committee inquiry was invalid because both Wilkinson and Braden, when they were called, were engaged in organizing activities against the Committee.241
238 360 U.S. 109 (1959).
239 365 U.S. 399 (1961).
240 Braden v. United States, 365 U.S. 431 (1961).
241 The majority denied that the witness’ participation in a lawful and protected course of action, such as petitioning Congress to abolish the Committee, limited the Committee’s right of inquiry. “[W]e cannot say that, simply because the petitioner at the moment may have been engaged in lawful conduct, his Communist activities in connection therewith could not be investigated. The subcommittee had reasonable ground to suppose that the petitioner was an active Communist Party member, and that as such he possessed information that would substantially aid it in its legislative investigation. As the Barenblatt opinion makes clear, it is the nature of the Communist activity involved, whether the momentary conduct is legitimate or illegitimate politically, that establishes the Government’s overbalancing interest.” Wilkinson v. United States, 365 U.S. 399, 414 (1961). In both cases, the dissenters, Chief Justice Warren and Justices Black, Douglas, and Brennan argued that the Committee action was invalid because it was intended to harass persons who had publicly criticized committee activities. Id. at 415, 423, 429.
Related to the cases discussed in this section are those cases requiring that congressional committees observe strictly their own rules. Thus, in Yellin v. United States,242 a contempt conviction was reversed because the Committee had failed to observe its rule providing for a closed session if a majority of the Committee believed that a witness’ appearance in public session might unjustly injure his reputation. The Court ruled that the Committee had ignored the rule when it subpoenaed the witness for a public hearing and then in failing to consider as a Committee his request for a closed session.243
Finally, it should be noted that the Court has blown hot and cold on the issue of a quorum as a prerequisite to a valid contempt citation and that no firm statement of a rule is possible, although it seems probable that ordinarily no quorum is necessary.244
Protection of Witnesses; Constitutional Guarantees.— “[T]he Congress, in common with all branches of the Government, must exercise its powers subject to the limitations placed by the Constitution on governmental action, more particularly in the context of this case, the relevant limitations of the Bill of Rights.”245 Just as the Constitution places limitations on Congress’ power to legislate, so it limits the power to investigate. In this section, we are concerned with the limitations the Bill of Rights places on the scope and nature of the congressional power to inquire.
242 374 U.S. 109 (1963).
243 Failure to follow its own rules was again an issue in Gojack v. United States, 384 U.S. 702 (1966), in which the Court noted that while a committee rule required the approval of a majority of the Committee before a “major” investigation was initiated, such approval had not been sought before a Subcommittee proceeded.
244 In Christoffel v. United States, 338 U.S. 84 (1949), the Court held that a witness can be found guilty of perjury only where a quorum of the committee is present at the time the perjury is committed; it is not enough to prove that a quorum was present when the hearing began. But in United States v. Bryan, 339 U.S. 323 (1950), the Court ruled that a quorum was not required under the statute punishing refusal to honor a valid subpoena issued by an authorized committee.
245 Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U.S. 109, 112 (1959).
The most extensive amount of litigation in this area has involved the privilege against self-incrimination guaranteed against governmental abridgment by the Fifth Amendment. Observance of the privilege by congressional committees has been so uniform that no court has ever held that it must be observed, though the dicta are plentiful.246 Thus, the cases have explored not the issue of the right to rely on the privilege but rather the manner and extent of its application.
There is no prescribed form in which one must plead the privilege. When a witness refused to answer a question about Communist Party affiliations and based his refusal upon the assertion by a prior witness of “the first amendment supplemented by the fifth,” the Court held that he had sufficiently invoked the privilege, at least in the absence of committee inquiry seeking to force him to adopt a more precise stand.247 If the committee suspected that the witness was being purposely vague, in order perhaps to avoid the stigma attached to a forthright claim of the privilege, it should have requested him to state specifically the ground of his refusal to testify. Another witness, who was threatened with prosecution for his Communist activities, could claim the privilege even to some questions the answers to which he might have been able to explain away as unrelated to criminal conduct; if an answer might tend to be incriminatory, the witness is not deprived of the privilege merely because he might have been able to refute inferences of guilt.248 In still another case, the Court held that the Committee had not clearly overruled the claim of privilege and directed an answer.249
The privilege against self-incrimination is not available as a defense to an organizational officer who refuses to turn over organization documents and records to an investigating committee.250
In Hutcheson v. United States,251 the Court rejected a challenge to a Senate Committee inquiry into union corruption on the part of a witness who was under indictment in state court on charges relating to the same matters about which the Committee sought to interrogate him. The witness did not plead his privilege against self-incrimination but contended that by questioning him about matters which would aid the state prosecutor the Committee had denied him due process. The plurality opinion of the Court rejected his ground for refusing to answer, noting that if the Commit-tee’s public hearings rendered the witness’ state trial unfair, then he could properly raise that issue on review of his state conviction.252
246 360 U.S. at 126; Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178, 196 (1957); Quinn v. United States, 349 U.S. 155, 161 (1955).
247 Quinn v. United States, 349 U.S. 155 (1955).
248 Emspak v. United States, 349 U.S. 190 (1955).
249 Bart v. United States, 349 U.S. 219 (1955).
250 McPhaul v. United States, 364 U.S. 372 (1960).
251 369 U.S. 599 (1962).
Claims relating to the First Amendment have been frequently asserted and as frequently denied. It is not that the First Amendment is inapplicable to congressional investigations, it is that under the prevailing Court interpretation the First Amendment does not bar all legislative restrictions of the rights guaranteed by it.253 “[T]he protections of the First Amendment, unlike a proper claim of the privilege against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment, do not afford a witness the right to resist inquiry in all circumstances. Where First Amendment rights are asserted to bar governmental interrogation, resolution of the issue always involves a balancing by the courts of the competing private and public interests at stake in the particular circumstances shown.”254
Thus, the Court has declined to rule that under the circumstances of the cases investigating committees are precluded from making inquiries simply because the subject area was education255 or because the witnesses at the time they were called were engaged in protected activities such as petitioning Congress to abolish the inquiring committee.256 However, in an earlier case, the Court intimated that it was taking a narrow view of the committee’s authority because a determination that authority existed would raise a serious First Amendment issue.257 And in a state legislative investigating committee case, the majority of the Court held that an inquiry seeking the membership lists of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was so lacking in a “nexus” between the organization and the Communist Party that the inquiry infringed the First Amendment.258
252 Justice Harlan wrote the opinion of the Court which Justices Clark and Stewart joined. Justice Brennan concurred solely because the witness had not claimed the privilege against self-incrimination but he would have voted to reverse the conviction had there been a claim. Chief Justice Warren and Justice Douglas dissented on due process grounds. Justices Black, Frankfurter, and White did not participate. At the time of the decision, the self-incrimination clause did not restrain the States through the Fourteenth Amendment so that it was no violation of the clause for either the Federal Government or the States to compel testimony which would incriminate the witness in the other jurisdiction. Cf. United States v. Murdock, 284 U.S. 141 (1931); Knapp v. Schweitzer, 357 U.S. 371 (1958). The Court has since reversed itself, Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1 (1964); Murphy v. Waterfront Comm’n, 378 U.S. 52 (1964), thus leaving the vitality of Hutcheson doubtful.
253 The matter is discussed fully in the section on the First Amendment but a good statement of the balancing rule may be found in Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 51 (1971), by Justice Black, supposedly an absolutist on the subject: “Where a statute does not directly abridge free speech, but—while regulating a subject within the State’s power—tends to have the incidental effect of inhibiting First Amendment rights, it is well settled that the statute can be upheld if the effect on speech is minor in relation to the need for control of the conduct and the lack of alternative means for doing so.”
254 Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U.S. 109, 126 (1959).
255 Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U.S. 109 (1959).
256 Wilkinson v. United States, 365 U.S. 399 (1961); Braden v. United States, 365 U.S. 431 (1961).
Dicta in the Court’s opinions acknowledge that the Fourth Amendment guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures are applicable to congressional committees.259 The issue would most often arise in the context of subpoenas, inasmuch as that procedure is the usual way by which committees obtain documentary material and inasmuch as Fourth Amendment standards apply as well to subpoenas as to search warrants.260 But there are no cases in which a holding turns on this issue.261
Other constitutional rights of witnesses have been asserted at various times, but without success or even substantial minority support.
Explicit judicial recognition of the right of either House of Congress to commit for contempt a witness who ignores its summons or refuses to answer its inquiries dates from McGrain v. Daugherty.262 But the principle there applied had its roots in an early case, Anderson v. Dunn,263 which stated in broad terms the right of either branch of the legislature to attach and punish a person other than a member for contempt of its authority.264 The right to punish a contumacious witness was conceded in Marshall v. Gordon,265 although the Court there held that the implied power to deal with contempt did not extend to the arrest of a person who published matter defamatory of the House.
257 United States v. Rumely, 345 U.S. 41 (1953).
258 Gibson v. Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, 372 U.S. 539 (1963). See also DeGregory v. Attorney General, 383 U.S. 825 (1966).
259 Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178, 188 (1957).
260 See Oklahoma Press Publishing Co. v. Walling, 327 U.S. 186 (1946), and cases cited.
261 Cf. McPhaul v. United States, 364 U.S. 372 (1960).
262 273 U.S. 135 (1927).
263 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 204 (1821).
264 The contempt consisted of an alleged attempt to bribe a Member of the House for his assistance in passing a claims bill. The case was a civil suit brought by Anderson against the Sergeant at Arms of the House for assault and battery and false imprisonment. Cf. Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U.S. 168 (1881). The power of a legislative body to punish for contempt one who disrupts legislative business was reaffirmed in Groppi v. Leslie, 404 U.S. 496 (1972), but a unanimous Court there held that due process required a legislative body to give a contemnor notice and an opportunity to be heard prior to conviction and sentencing. Although this case dealt with a state legislature, there is no question it would apply to Congress as well.
265 243 U.S. 521 (1917).
The cases emphasize that the power to punish for contempt rests upon the right of self-preservation. That is, in the words of Chief Justice White, “the right to prevent acts which in and of themselves inherently obstruct or prevent the discharge of legislative duty or the refusal to do that which there is inherent legislative power to compel in order that legislative functions may be performed” necessitates the contempt power.266 Thus, in Jurney v. MacCracken,267 the Court turned aside an argument that the Senate had no power to punish a witness who, having been commanded to produce papers, destroyed them after service of the subpoena. The punishment would not be efficacious in obtaining the papers in this particular case, but the power to punish for a past contempt is an appropriate means of vindicating “the established and essential privilege of requiring the production of evidence.”268
Under the rule laid down by Anderson v. Dunn,269 imprisonment by one of the Houses of Congress could not extend beyond the adjournment of the body which ordered it. Because of this limitation and because contempt trials before the bar of the House charging were time-consuming, in 1857 Congress enacted a statute providing for criminal process in the federal courts with prescribed penalties for contempt of Congress.270
The Supreme Court has held that the purpose of this statute is merely supplementary of the power retained by Congress, and all constitutional objections to it were overruled. “We grant that Congress could not divest itself, or either of its Houses, of the essential and inherent power to punish for contempt, in cases to which the power of either House properly extended; but because Congress, by the Act of 1857, sought to aid each of the Houses in the discharge of its constitutional functions, it does not follow that any delegation of the power in each to punish for contempt was involved.”271
Because Congress has invoked the aid of the federal judicial system in protecting itself against contumacious conduct, the consequence, the Court has asserted numerous times, is that the duty has been conferred upon the federal courts to accord a person prosecuted for his statutory offense every safeguard which the law accords in all other federal criminal cases,272 and the discussion in previous sections of many reversals of contempt convictions bears witness to the assertion in practice. What constitutional protections ordinarily necessitated by due process requirements, such as notice, right to counsel, confrontation, and the like, prevail in a contempt trial before the bar of one House or the other is an open question.273
266 243 U.S. at 542.
267 294 U.S. 125 (1935).
268 294 U.S. at 150.
269 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 204 (1821).
270 Act of January 24, 1857, 11 Stat. 155. With only minor modification, this statute is now 2 U.S.C. § 192.
271 In re Chapman, 166 U.S. 661, 671–672 (1897).
272 Sinclair v. United States, 279 U.S. 263, 296–297 (1929); Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178, 207 (1957); Sacher v. United States, 356 U.S. 576, 577 (1958); Flaxer v. United States, 358 U.S. 147, 151 (1958); Deutch v. United States, 367 U.S. 456, 471 (1961); Russell v. United States, 369 U.S. 749, 755 (1962). Protesting the Court’s reversal of several contempt convictions over a period of years, Justice Clark was moved to suggest that “[t]his continued frustration of the Congress in the use of the judicial process to punish those who are contemptuous of its committees indicates to me that the time may have come for Congress to revert to ‘its original practice of utilizing the coercive sanction of contempt proceedings at the bar of the House [affected].’” Id. at 781; Watkins, 354 U.S. at 225.273 Cf. Groppi v. Leslie, 404 U.S. 496 (1972).
It has long been settled that the courts may not intervene directly to restrain the carrying out of an investigation or the manner of an investigation, and that a witness who believes the inquiry to be illegal or otherwise invalid in order to raise the issue must place himself in contempt and raise his beliefs as affirmative defenses on his criminal prosecution. This understanding was sharply reinforced when the Court held that the speech-or-debate clause utterly foreclosed judicial interference with the conduct of a congressional investigation, through review of the propriety of subpoenas or otherwise.274 It is only with regard to the trial of contempts that the courts may review the carrying out of congressional investigations and may impose constitutional and other constraints.
274 Eastland v. United States Servicemen’s Fund, 421 U.S. 491 (1975).
Last modified: June 9, 2014