The House of Representatives formally established the new “Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party,” with a bipartisan vote of 365-65. The Select Committee, to be chaired by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), a former military intelligence officer who also serves on the House Intelligence Committee, has been
Congressional Investigations
Congressional Investigations in the 118th Congress
Congressional investigations thrive in divided government. With a constrained ability to advance policy through legislation, Members are more likely to turn to investigations as a means of making headlines and affecting private sector practices.
The Democratic Senate majority and the Republican House majority give the respective majorities the ability to control the agenda of each chamber, and likely virtually unfettered subpoena power. Democrats will preside over all Senate committees and have control of the Senate agenda. Likewise, Republicans will preside over all House committees and have control of the House agenda. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the Republican Conference nominee for Speaker of the House, recently released a sweeping Oversight plan for “Oversight in the 118th Congress,” which is discussed below.
Congressional investigations have been on the rise generally in the past several years, and all signs indicate that investigations in the 118th Congress will be prolific and particularly challenging, especially for the companies, industries, and individuals that are a central focus of GOP critiques. As part of these investigations, incoming House Republican committee chairs will possess virtually unchecked power to issue subpoenas, demand documents, call hearings, and compel witnesses to testify.
Congressional investigators have a large toolkit. There are a number of ways Congress can exert pressure on companies and individuals, and this has expanded in recent years. In the new Congress, recent developments in congressional investigations will be precedent-setting for newly empowered House GOP committees, who likely will look to the tactics and techniques that the current Democratic-led committees employed in the past few years for creative investigative ideas. For example, many Americans watched the January 6th Select Committee hearings and that Committee’s effective use of videotaped deposition testimony. In the future, we anticipate that more committees will use videotaped depositions, both to put additional pressure on witnesses and to generate additional headlines. …
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January 6 Committee Filing Provides Further Support for Parties Asserting Attorney-Client Privilege in Congressional Investigations
Yesterday, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol filed a highly consequential brief in ongoing litigation relating to a subpoena seeking documents involving attorney John Eastman’s alleged participation in efforts to thwart Congress’s certification of the results of the 2020 Presidential election. Not surprisingly, the Select Committee’s…
Recent Developments Shed Further Light on Congressional Subpoena Authority
Back to Square One in the Courts
Historically, investigators on Capitol Hill have relied on civil enforcement proceedings to enforce their subpoenas and compel the production of sought-after documents or testimony. As we detailed in November, however, the D.C. Circuit cast doubt on the ability of investigators in the House to pursue this common avenue for enforcing its subpoenas.
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Financial Institutions and Congressional Investigations – 2020 into 2021
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Senate Subpoena Power Under the 2021 Power-Sharing Agreement
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Congressional Investigations with a Democratic House and Senate
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Congressional Investigations: Recent Events Bring Greater Clarity to Expectations for 2021
As the calendar turns from 2020 to 2021, we are taking stock of congressional investigations over the past two years, and assessing events in the recent weeks that help to shed light on the likely trajectory for congressional investigations in 2021.
- In late October, we considered congressional investigations in the context of the upcoming election.
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Congressional Investigations in the Next Congress
Two years ago, the newly elected Democratic majority in the House promised a wave of investigations—and they sure did deliver. Even if you set aside the investigations related to the impeachment, the pace of investigations over the last two years was unlike anything we had witnessed in more than a decade.
A hallmark of the…
The Supreme Court’s Mazars Decision Contains a Significant Suggestion That Congress May Be Bound by the Attorney-Client Privilege in Congressional Investigations
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