Washington, D.C. — Today, Rep. Barry Moore (AL-02) issued the following statement after voting against holding Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress, yet another obvious abuse of power by House Democrats.
“Instead of focusing on the real issues facing our country, the House Democrats continue to play political games,” said Moore. Democrats have made it very clear that they are out of touch with the needs of the American people. The January 6th Select Committee is nothing more than a political witch hunt aimed to attack Donald J. Trump and his supporters. We need to address the multiple real crises facing American families, like rising crime, increasing inflation, our broken supply chain, and the worsening border fiasco. Democrats may think they can distract the media and the public with partisan grandstanding, but the American people will hold them accountable for ignoring these crises.”
Click here for an audio recording of Moore's statement.
BACKGROUND
While Congress has a significant and important oversight power to secure needed information in order to legislate, it does not have enumerated constitutional powers to conduct investigations or issue subpoenas outside of that scope. The issue before the House is not whether Congress should conduct oversight but instead whether Congress has the authority to conduct this investigation for a legislative purpose.
Congress’s oversight authority also does not include law enforcement powers – those powers belong to the Executive and Judicial Branch, and the FBI and the US Attorney’s office are the law enforcement entities investigating the events of January 6th. The Supreme Court itself has agreed that Congress has no authority to issue a subpoena for law enforcement purposes, and if Congress believes a crime has been committed, that is the purview of the judicial and executive branches of government. The Court also agreed that Congress has no authority to issue a subpoena to compel exposure for the sake of exposure because that is not deemed a valid legislative purpose, nor may Congress issue a subpoena in an attempt to “try” someone before a committee for any crime or wrongdoing.
Speaker Pelosi’s select committee does not get to step into the shoes of law enforcement solely because it would be politically expedient. ### | 