Congress doesn’t have prosecutorial power, but it can act to remove those responsible.
For all my friends who continue to call for a “special counsel” — meaning an independent prosecutor — for the IRS scandal, I have one simple question:
If you believe, as I do, that President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are corruptly covering up the conspiracy by the executive branch and congressional Democrats to violate the constitutional rights of conservative groups, what makes you think they would appoint a scrupulous lawyer to investigate and expose the conspiracy?
The question answers itself, so much so that some members of Congress, in their understandable outrage and frustration, are proposing unconstitutional solutions to the Obama administration’s unconstitutional lawlessness. Exhibit A: Senator Pat Roberts (R., Okla.), a member of the Finance Committee investigating the IRS scandal — a metastasizing exhibition of high crimes and misdemeanors that now piles destruction of evidence, misleading testimony, and obstruction of justice atop abuse of the revenue agency’s awesome powers to intimidate conservative groups.
Senator Roberts says:
At this point, only a Congressionally appointed and separately funded special counsel, with full subpoena power, can get to the bottom of this matter. Congress has longstanding and broad authority to both investigate allegations of wrongdoing within the federal government and to delegate its investigatory powers to other entities. It’s time to put this authority into action.
The italics are mine, in order to highlight the problem. Yes, Congress has investigative authority in connection with its important oversight function — i.e., overseeing the activities of executive-branch agencies such as the IRS that Congress establishes and underwrites with taxpayer funds. What Congress does not have, however, is prosecutorial authority.
Congress can issue subpoenas for information in connection with its oversight function; it lacks any power to issue subpoenas in connection with what Senator Roberts says he is calling for: “the arrest and prosecution of those responsible for suppressing the First Amendment.” Congress is bereft of authority to enforce the penal laws, to conduct grand-jury proceedings, to issue indictments, to make arrests, and to subject offenders to criminal trials.