Monday, July 29, 2019

Balkinization: Can Congress Investigate Whether the President Has Conflicts of Interest, is Compromised by Russia, or Has Violated the Law?

Balkinization: Can Congress Investigate Whether the President Has Conflicts of Interest, is Compromised by Russia, or Has Violated the Law?
by Marty Lederman - Georgetown Law
July 29, 2019
The answer to the question in my title is obvious, isn't it?:  Of course Congress can do so.  According to Donald Trump and his (personal) attorneys, however, the correct answer is “no.”  And in a series of pending cases involving challenges to congressional efforts to obtain the President’s financial and tax records, they’re urging the courts to hold that Congress’s oversight and regulatory authorities simply don't extend to investigating the wrongdoing, foreign influence over, and possible conflicts of interest of, the President of the United States.

It’s hard to exaggerate just how profound a challenge this is to our longstanding system of checks and balances.  Yet these cases, and Trump's arguments in them, have mostly flown under the radar: They haven't received much attention in the press or among legal observers.  Perhaps that's as it should be:  After all, if the arguments are as extreme as I'm suggesting, maybe there's nothing much to worry about.  The Trump team is deadly serious, however; the Department of Justice might come to its aid; and it’s possible Trump’s lawyers will find a receptive audience among at least some Supreme Court Justices.  Therefore I thought it might be worthwhile to unpack those arguments a bit in this post.

Background on Congress's Oversight Authority and "Informing" Function

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