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1 1 (October 2, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/govbbga0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional ______ 'Research Serv-ice I~nforming the Iegislative debate since 1914 Impeachment Investigations: Law and Process October 2, 2019 Speaker Pelosi announced last week that the House is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry. Although the Speaker's statement did not address precisely how the House will proceed, it is noteworthy not only because the House has so rarely investigated a President for the purpose of impeachment, but also because an impeachment investigation has usually been an early step in a constitutional process that could ultimately result in the removal of the subject of the inquiry from office. This Sidebar identifies procedural options for the House as it proceeds with an impeachment investigation. The Sidebar also describes some of the ways in which an impeachment investigation, as compared to a more traditional investigation for legislative or oversight purposes, might bolster the House's ability to obtain, either voluntarily or through the courts, information from the executive branch. The Sidebar also briefly describes possible future steps that might follow an impeachment inquiry, including possible action by the Senate. The Mechanics of House Impeachment Investigations The House has a number of options for proceeding with its impeachment investigation, as the manner by which the body chooses to implement its impeachment powers is textually and historically committed to the House's own discretion. It could, adopt a resolution that explicitly authorizes the House Judiciary Committee (or another committee) to conduct an investigation to determine whether there are sufficient grounds to impeach the President and, if warranted, report articles of impeachment to the House. Or the House could establish and empower a select investigative committee to handle this duty, perhaps giving the body broad jurisdiction over all relevant aspects of the allegations against the President. In either case, an authorizing resolution typically makes explicit that the investigating committee is acting with the imprimatur of the House and exercising the full panoply of the House's constitutionally based investigative and impeachment powers. Authorizing resolutions also provide a means for the House to both direct the scope of an impeachment inquiry and, if desired, provide the investigating committee with additional tools to enable a thorough and expeditious investigation. While House rules already provide standing committees with several compulsory mechanisms to gather information, authorizing resolutions for impeachment inquiries have generally conferred additional investigatory tools to a committee, such as the authority to compel responses to interrogatories. Rather than considering a resolution that expressly authorizes an impeachment inquiry of the President, the House might take the position that such an inquiry is already underway, and opt to allow its Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB10347 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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