Justice for All Resolution

IV 116TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION H. RES. 97 Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the crime of lying to Congress must be prosecuted equitably. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FEBRUARY 4, 2019 Mr. GAETZ (for himself and Mr. BIGGS) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary RESOLUTION Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the crime of lying to Congress must be prosecuted equitably. Whereas providing false or misleading testimony to the Con- gress is a crime under sections 1001, 1621, and 1623 of chapter 18, United States Code; Whereas testimony given before Congress, or any of the com- mittees and subcommittees thereof, must be truthful; Whereas honest and forthright testimony is essential to the oversight and investigational authority of Congress; Whereas the investigative authority of Congress has been an integral part of its operations since its establishment; Whereas the ‘‘inquisitorial powers’’ of the legislature were even discussed in the Federal Convention of 1787, prior to the ratification of the Constitution; VerDate Sep 11 2014 22:51 Feb 04, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR97.IH HR97 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 2 •HRES 97 IH Whereas, in 1792, a committee of the House of Representa- tives conducted an investigation into military losses to Native American Tribes, and the committee was explicitly empowered to ‘‘to call for such persons, papers, and records, as may be necessary to assist their inquiries’’; Whereas Roger Stone, a longtime political strategist, was re- cently arrested, with 29 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents and 17 vehicles arriving at his home for a predawn raid; Whereas the indictment of Stone revealed that the crimes for which he was arrested were one count of obstruction of proceeding, five counts of false statements, and one count of witness tampering; Whereas Stone is one of a very small number of people who have been arrested for the crime of lying to Congress; Whereas it has been widely recognized by Members of Con- gress, legal scholars, and historians that lying to Con- gress is a crime for which very few people have been prosecuted; Whereas in a 2007 essay in the Quinnipiac Law Review, Mr. P.J. Meitl wrote that ‘‘almost no one is prosecuted for lying to Congress’’, and that ‘‘only six people have been convicted of perjury or related charges in relation to Con- gress in the last sixty years’’; and Whereas the lack of convictions for lying to Congress is not due to the overwhelming truthfulness of testimony given, as it has been revealed and proven that many people have knowingly provided false statements to Congress without facing punishment, including but not limited to— (1) James Clapper, former Director of National In- telligence, who was questioned by Senator Ron Wyden, VerDate Sep 11 2014 22:51 Feb 04, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR97.IH HR97 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 3 •HRES 97 IH and was asked whether the NSA ‘‘collect[ed] any type of data at all on millions, or hundreds of millions of Ameri- cans’’, to which Clapper replied ‘‘No, sir’’, and ‘‘not wittingly’’, a response he later admitted was ‘‘clearly er- roneous’’; (2) James Comey, former FBI Director, who was questioned by Senator Charles Grassley, and asked whether he had ever authorized someone to leak informa- tion to the media, to which he responded ‘‘no’’, despite reports from the Office of the Inspector General indi- cating his response was likely untrue; (3) John Brennan, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who was questioned by Rep- resentative Trey Gowdy, and asked whether the FBI or CIA had used the so-called ‘‘Steele dossier’’ as the basis for any legal proceedings of any kind, to which Brennan replied ‘‘no’’, and stated further that the dossier ‘‘was not, in any way, used as the basis for the intelligence community assessment’’ of possible election interference, a statement contradicted by news reports, investigative journalists, and the sworn testimony of many other mem- bers of the intelligence community; (4) Andrew McCabe, former Deputy FBI Director, who was revealed by the Office of the Inspector General to have ‘‘lacked candor’’ when questioned about his unau- thorized disclosure of information to the media, including three instances while McCabe was under oath; (5) Lois Lerner, former Director of the Exempt Or- ganizations Unit of the Internal Revenue Service, who re- peatedly made false statements to congressional inves- tigators, and who denied that she had requested overly extensive and deeply intrusive information from conserv- ative nonprofit organizations in an attempt in order to VerDate Sep 11 2014 22:51 Feb 04, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR97.IH HR97 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 4 •HRES 97 IH chill their constitutional rights to free political speech, statements later revealed by the Department of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Information to be untrue; (6) Eric Holder, former Attorney General, who— (A) provided false information to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on May 3, 2011, regarding the origins of the program named ‘‘Fast and Furious’’, subsequently changing his statement during testimony before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on November 18, 2011; (B) provided false information to the House Committee on the Judiciary on May 15, 2013, when he claimed that he had recused himself from the As- sociated Press leak investigation, without any records indicating a formal recusal letter, required under such circumstances, had ever been drafted; and (C) provided false information to the House Committee on the Judiciary on May 15, 2013, say- ing that ‘‘prosecution of the press’’ was something he had never ‘‘been involved in [or] heard of,’’ though he had personally signed off on a search war- rant for the personal email account of Fox News correspondent Mr. James Rosen; and (7) Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State, who was questioned about mishandling classified data by Rep- resentative Jim Jordan during a hearing of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, and responded ‘‘there was nothing marked classified on my e-mails, either sent or received’’, a statement proven untrue by reports from the FBI and the Office of the Inspector General: Now, there- fore, be it VerDate Sep 11 2014 22:51 Feb 04, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR97.IH HR97 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 5 •HRES 97 IH Resolved, 1 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 2 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Justice for All Resolu- 3 tion’’. 4 SEC. 2. SENSE OF CONGRESS. 5 That it is the sense of the House of Representatives 6 that the crime of lying to Congress, as defined in sections 7 1001, 1621, and 1623 of chapter 18, United States Code, 8 must be prosecuted equitably, without regard to politics 9 or elections. 10 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 22:51 Feb 04, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\HR97.IH HR97 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS