United States Senate Judiciary Committee

“ Much of the evidence relied upon by the Committee and gathered by staff was obtained through other investigations, including the investigation by the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. Indeed, the Senate Select Committee's televised hearings are what typically come to mind when one thinks of Congress's investigation of Watergate. The Senate, of course, does not conduct impeachment inquiries; its constitutional function is "to try all Impeachments" if an officer of the United States is impeached by the House. ”

“ The First Judiciary Act conferred such a power on the federal courts in the very act of their establishment, 1 Stat. 73, 83, and of the Judiciary Committee of eight that reported the bill to the Senate, five members including the chairman, Senator, later to be Chief Justice, Ellsworth, had been delegates to the Constitutional Convention. ”

“ The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not apply to any of the committee's investigative activities, including transcribed interviews. There are some guidelines we follow, and I'll go over those now.
Our questioning will proceed in rounds. The majority staff will ask questions first for one hour, then the minority staff will have an opportunity to ask questions for an equal amount of time. We will go back and forth until there are no more questions and the interview is over. ”

“ The Senate Committee on the Judiciary or a duly authorized Subcommittee was authorized [4] to investigate the administration, operation, and enforcement of the Internal Security Act of 1950. [5] The Committee created a Subcommittee which adopted a resolution to the effect that a single member would constitute a quorum for the purpose of taking testimony.
Petitioner was head of the union under investigation. The Chairman issued a subpoena duces tecum directing him to produce, inter alia, the names and addresses of the union members mentioned above. ”

“ The Constitution provides that the President "shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint" Supreme Court Justices and, as established by Congress, other federal judges. Art. II, § 2, cl. 2. Since 1952 the President, through the Department of Justice, has requested advice from the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary (ABA Committee) in making such nominations.
The American Bar Association is a private voluntary professional association of approximately 343,000 attorneys. ”

“ Mr. Tavenner. Will you tell the committee the circumstances under which the Progressive Party contributed your services to the National Committee To Defeat the Mundt Bill?
Mr. O’Connell. Well, in connection with the—there were hearings being held in the Senate, as I stated yesterday, by a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1948. I think those hearings were 553 being presided over by former Senator Ferguson and Senator Langer of North Dakota was a member of the committee. ”

“ Failure to obey process of the committee or refusal to answer questions pertinent to the investigation was to be punished according to law. The resolution recited that the Senate desired facts to aid it in enacting remedial legislation and in deciding contests involving senatorial elections. [2] The committee so appointed authorized Senator Nye, the Chairman, to act as a subcommittee and to name a subcommittee of one or more members. ”

“ If we had the good fortune to write on a blank slate, Senate Rules should require 60 votes to confirm a Supreme Court Justice in order to force, at least in most circumstances, a bipartisan consensus not only on the back end, for the final vote, but also on the front end, by necessitating more consultation by the president with the minority party leadership in the Senate. ”

“ No Senator shall serve at any time as chairman of more than one standing, select, or special committee of the Senate or joint committee of the Congress, except that a Senator may serve as chairman of any joint committee of the Congress having jurisdiction with respect to a subject matter which is directly related to the jurisdiction of a standing committee of which he is chairman. ”

“ On the one hand, especially because judges and Justices sometimes must decide issues about which reasonable people disagree, there is an argument that the judiciary must not be entirely independent of the elected branches of government. Some aspects of our system—including not only the appointment and confirmation process, but also Congress’s role in setting the Court’s budget, jurisdiction, and size, and its control of the impeachment process—ensure that the judiciary is not entirely independent but is to some degree responsive to elected officials and therefore to public opinion. ”

“ On the 7th day of January, 1867, the House, on the motion of the Hon. James M. Ashley, a Representative from the State of Ohio, adopted the following preamble and resolutions, to-wit:
The duty imposed upon this committee by this action of the House, was of the highest and gravest character. No committee during the entire history of the Government, has ever been charged with a more important trust. ”

“ For example, the 1974 resolution authorizing and directing the impeachment inquiry into President Nixon served to clarify the scope of the Committee's subpoena authority and authorized the Committee and its counsel to take depositions. [61] Today, the House Rules for standing committees and for HPSCI already provide these authorities. [62] 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. ”

“ From the perspective of those who urge term limits, these various provisions of the Constitution aim to make the individual members of the judiciary independent at any given point in time, but the composition of the judiciary as a whole responsive over time to the people’s will, as expressed through its electoral decisions about who occupies the presidency and the Senate. ”

“ For the most part, it’s not that this senator thinks these nominees are unqualified. In fact, all of the judicial nominees being blocked have bipartisan support. And almost 90% have unanimous support from the Judiciary Committee. ”

“ On the other hand, endowing a copyright claimant who has obtained a certificate with a rebuttable presumption of the validity of his copyright does not deprive the defendant in an infringement suit of any rights; it merely orders the burdens of proof. The plaintiff should not ordinarily be forced in the first instance to prove all of the multitude of facts that underlie the validity of his copyright unless the defendant, by effectively challenging them, shifts the burden to him to do so. ”

“ However desirable it may be, that an elective chief magistracy should be filled with the highest capacity and fitness, and that popular tumults should be avoided, no government has yet existed, in which the election of such a magistrate by the legislative department has afforded any decided advantage over an election directly or indirectly by the people; and to give a body constituted as the American Senate is a negative in the choice of the executive, would be certainly inconvenient, probably dangerous. ”

“ The prosecution is to be conducted before a tribunal whose members are not, like him, responsible to the whole people, but to separate constituent bodies, and who may hear his accusation with great disfavor. The Senate is absolutely without any known standard of decision applicable to such a case. Its judgment can not be anticipated, for it is not governed by any rule. The law does not define what shall be deemed good cause for removal. It is impossible even to conjecture what may or may not be so considered by the Senate. ”

“ So when you evaluate human intelligence, human reporting, field reporting, source reporting, you know, it's sort of like when you're a journalist and you're trying to figure out who's telling the truth, right. You don't really decide who's telling the truth. You decide whether the person is credible, right, whether they know what they're talking about, whether there's other reasons to believe what they're saying, whether anything they've said factually matches up with something in the public record. ”

“ The first possibility is that the authorizing resolution itself will so clearly declare the 'question under inquiry' that a witness can understand the pertinency of questions asked him. The Government does not contend that the authorizing resolution of the Un-American Activities Committee could serve such a purpose. Its confusing breadth is amply illustrated by the innumerable and diverse questions into which the Committee has inquired under this charter since 1938. ”

“ It is impossible that under such circumstances men of talents and integrity will take seats on the bench, when their character shall be liable to be scrutinized without any facts being previously adduced.
I think it absolutely necessary that this resolution should not pass. For if it passes, it will establish a precedent that any member may procure an investigating committee to inquire into the conduct of any executive or judicial officer merely upon his opinion, unsupported by facts, that such an inquiry is necessary. Suppose parties to be nearly equally divided ”

“ Senator Richard Bassett, a member of the committee drafting the bill, ventured to say that “our happiness as a people very much depends on this System.” [11]
A Senate committee comprising ten members (one from each state that had both ratified the Constitution and sent senators by that point) produced a first version of the Act. The committee then sent its draft to leading lawyers, jurists, and officials around the nation, requesting their comments. ”

“ With as many as eight Democrats, like Senators Blumenthal, Durbin, McCaskill, already supporting a full hearing and vote for Judge Gorsuch, there is no question that he is a widely respected jurist who deserves to have his nomination fairly decided upon by the United States Senate. ”

“ If no other gentleman proposed an amendment, he should think it his duty to offer one, providing for these expenses. He hoped the committee would agree to the bill. Some gentlemen might think, by agreeing to it, they evinced an opinion of the guilt or innocence of the accused. But such a vote could not be viewed in this light. The House had exercised their constitutional right by voting an impeachment, while the Senate had exercised the same right in acquitting the accused. ”

“ These depositions and interviews were conducted consistent with the Rules of the House and with longstanding procedures governing investigations by HPSCI and the other committees. [15] Members of the Minority previously advocated expanding these authorities, explaining that " [t] he ability to interview witnesses in private allows committees to gather information confidentially and in more depth than is possible under the five-minute rule governing committee hearings. This ability is often critical to conducting an effective and thorough investigation." ”

“ The role the Court plays in major political and social conflicts has long made its composition and jurisprudence subjects of debate in the nation’s civic life. Throughout American history, including in recent decades, conflict over the Court has played out with varying degrees of intensity in the processes by which the President nominates and the Senate confirms new Justices. ”

“ A future of hope and opportunity requires a fair, impartial system of justice. The lives of our citizens across our nation are affected by the outcome of cases pending in our federal courts. We have a shared obligation to ensure that the federal courts have enough judges to hear those cases and deliver timely rulings. As President, I have a duty to nominate qualified men and women to vacancies on the federal bench. And the United States Senate has a duty, as well, to give those nominees a fair hearing, and a prompt up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. ”

“ Let it also be recollected, that if the reputation of the judge be at stake, the reputation of this House also is implicated. I consider this House as the constitutional guardians of the morality of the Judiciary. Whenever even suspicion exists as to that morality, a committee of inquiry should be appointed. For the pure administration of justice is surely more important than the reputation of any particular judge. I am sorry my colleague thought it necessary to make any statement of facts to the House. I believe that more important facts than he has mentioned will be stated by witnesses. ”