Congressional Investigations

If the current polls and predictions are accurate, the Democratic party is poised to take control of the House of Representatives next year, for the first time since 2010.  Congressional investigations thrive in divided government, and Democratic leaders in Congress are already promising a new wave of investigations.

My new …
Continue Reading Are You Ready For Your Congressional Investigation?

In late October, the House of Representatives quietly approved a bill that would dramatically strengthen Congress’s procedures for enforcing congressional subpoenas.  In adopting the bill, the bipartisan leadership of the House Judiciary Committee highlighted the challenges that Congress faces in obtaining materials from executive branch agencies.  Significant portions of the…
Continue Reading House of Representatives Seeks to Strengthen Subpoena Enforcement Dramatically

The new chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Representative Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), outlined his plans for the Committee last week.  As we expected, Mr. Gowdy said that he would pursue more methodical investigations.  Noting that hearings are “an inefficient way to gather facts,” Mr. Gowdy…
Continue Reading Rep. Gowdy Plans Deeper Oversight

The Trump administration’s efforts to curtail congressional oversight of executive branch agencies by individual Members of Congress, including ranking Democratic Members of Committees, ran into significant opposition from an unlikely source:  Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the Republican Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Sen. Grassley’s strong reaction is consistent with…
Continue Reading Grassley Defends Congressional Oversight; House Democrats Turn to Statutory Oversight Authority

With the announcement by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) that he plans to resign from Congress on June 30, it appears increasingly likely that Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) will become the next Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the House’s powerful watchdog committee that has very broad…
Continue Reading The Gowdy Era of Congressional Investigations

The long saga of the legal challenge by Carl Ferrer, CEO of Backpage, to a subpoena issued by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (“PSI”) appears to have reached a conclusion.  A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit this week dismissed the case as …
Continue Reading D.C. Circuit Dismisses Major Case Concerning Attorney-Client Privilege in Congressional Investigations

Congressional investigations are rare, but for corporations, they are not quite “black swan” events that are impossible to predict.  For companies in high profile, controversial, or highly regulated industries, they are more like “gray swan” events.  They happen often enough that you can and should plan for them.  We’ve published…
Continue Reading What To Expect When You Weren’t Expecting A Congressional Investigation

Litigation by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to enforce a subpoena for documents from Carl Ferrer, the CEO of Backpage, an online forum accused of contributing to sex trafficking, has taken another interesting twist, with the D.C. District Court ruling that Backpage cannot assert the attorney-client privilege to protect certain documents.  It is rare for a court to issue a ruling on attorney-client privilege in a congressional investigation, and the court’s ruling has significant implications for any individual or company facing demands from Congress for documents, information, or testimony.
Continue Reading The Latest Twist in the Backpage Litigation and its Implications for the Attorney-Client Privilege in Congressional Investigations

The Supreme Court today refused to block a subpoena by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the online forum Backpage and its CEO Carl Ferrer. As we previously reported, Ferrer lost at the District Court in his effort to block the Senate subpoena, arguing primarily that the subpoena…
Continue Reading Supreme Court Refuses to Stay Senate Subpoena, Highlights the Difficulties Inherent in Challenging a Congressional Subpoena