legislative powers, but also serves as a "grand inquest of the nation.'"[1] It is therefore presumed that "all the archives and papers of the Executive Departments, public or private, would be subject to . . . inspection" and "every facility in the power of the Executive [would] be afforded to enable [the House] to prosecute the investigation."[2]
In contravention of those settled principles, and in violation of the assignment of powers under the Constitution, President Trump has defied a subpoena served on the White House. He has also directed other agencies, offices, and officials across the Executive Branch to violate their own obligations under the law. His direction has been complete and wholly unqualified in nature. Rather than undertake a process of dialogue and accommodation, the President has stonewalled all investigative prerogatives and interests held by the House in an impeachment inquiry. Although the Justice Department and individual Executive Branch officials have additionally raised specific objections to certain subpoenas—none of which have merit—President Trump's general direction that the Executive Branch obstruct Congress has rendered those objections practically irrelevant. President Trump's unprecedented conduct thus raises a single question: Is it an impeachable offense under the Constitution for the President to direct the categorical and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued pursuant to a House impeachment inquiry?
The Committee has undertaken a thorough survey of relevant authorities and concludes that the answer is plainly "yes." This is not a close case. President Trump has asserted and exercised the unilateral prerogative to direct complete defiance of every single impeachment-related subpoena served on the Executive Branch. He has purported to justify this obstruction by attacking the motives, procedures, and legitimacy of the House impeachment inquiry—in overt violation of our Constitution, which vests the House (and not the President) with the "sole Power of Impeachment."
Simply stated, these are not judgments for the President to make. His position would place Presidents in control of a power meant to restrain their own abuses. That is not what the Constitution provides. As Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter W. Rodino correctly explained to President Nixon in May 1974, "[u]nder the Constitution it is not within the power of the President to conduct an inquiry into his own impeachment, to determine which evidence, and what version or portion of that evidence, is relevant and necessary to such an inquiry. These are matters which, under the Constitution, the House has the sole power to determine."[3]
President Trump's direction to obstruct the House impeachment inquiry is thus grossly incompatible with, and subversive of, the Constitution. It marks a dangerous step toward debilitating the Impeachment Clause and unraveling the Framers' plan. This claim of Presidential power is also recognizably wrong—as every President in American history, except President Trump, has in fact recognized. Through his conduct, President Trump's has revealed himself as a continuing threat to
- ↑ Report of the Committee on the Judiciary, Impeachment of Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States, H. Rep. No. 93-1305 at 207 (1974) (quoting President Polk) (citations omitted) (hereinafter "Committee Report on Nixon Articles of Impeachment (1974)").
- ↑ Id.
- ↑ Committee Report on Nixon Articles of Impeachment (1974), at 194.
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