authorities.[1] Thus, as a practical matter, a full vote of the House is no longer needed to provide investigating committees with the kinds of authorities needed to conduct their investigations. Here, of course, the House did ultimately adopt H. Res. 660, which explicitly directed HPSCI and the Committees on the Judiciary, Oversight and Reform, Foreign Affairs, Financial Services, and Ways and Means to "continue their ongoing investigations" as part of the House's "existing" impeachment inquiry. Although the House was not obligated to enact such a resolution, H. Res. 660 affirmed the authority of the House and these committees to continue their investigations and provided further structure to govern the inquiry moving forward.
This sequence of events in the House's impeachment inquiry into President Trump bears substantial resemblance to the development of the House's impeachment inquiry into President Nixon. The Judiciary Committee's consideration of impeachment resolutions against President Nixon began in October 1973, when various resolutions calling for President Nixon's impeachment were introduced in the House and referred to the Judiciary Committee.[2] Over the next several months, the Committee investigated the Watergate break-in and coverup (among other matters) using its existing investigatory authorities.[3] The Committee also hired a special counsel and other attorneys to assist in these efforts, and the House adopted a resolution in November 1973 to fund the Committee's investigations.[4] As the Committee explained in a February 1974 staff report, its work up through that time included forming multiple task forces within the staff to gather evidence organized around various subjects of interest.[5] All of this occurred before the House approved a resolution directing the Judiciary Committee to investigate whether sufficient grounds existed to impeach President Nixon.[6] So too here, committees of the House began investigating allegations of misconduct by President Trump before the House voted to approve H. Res. 660. That course of events is consistent not only with the House's impeachment inquiry against President Nixon but with common sense. After all, before voting to conduct an impeachment inquiry, the House must have some means of ascertaining the nature and seriousness of the allegations and the scope of the inquiry that may follow. It defies logic to suggest that House committees have no authority to begin examining the President's potentially impeachable misconduct unless or until the full House votes to conduct an impeachment inquiry.
IV.President Trump Received Ample Procedural Protections
- ↑ See H. Res 6, 116th Cong. § 103(a), (2019); Jefferson's Manual § 805 (describing gradual expansion of these authorities).
- ↑ 3 Deschler ch. 14 § 15.1.
- ↑ See id. ch. 14 § 15.2 (Parliamentarian's Note); Report of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, Impeachment of Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States, H. Rep. No. 93-1305 at 6 (1974) (hereinafter "Committee Report on Nixon Articles of Impeachment (1974)").
- ↑ Committee Report on Nixon Articles of Impeachment (1974) at 6.
- ↑ Work of the Impeachment Inquiry Staff As of February 5, 1974: Report by the Staff of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary at 2-3, 93d Cong. (1974) (hereinafter "February 5, 1974 Progress Report").
- ↑ H. Res. 803 § 1, 93d Cong. (1974).
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