House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, DN.Y., promised last week to investigate President Donald Trump’s decision to commute his former associate Roger Stone’s prison sentence.
“President Trump has infected our judicial system with partisanship and cronyism and has attacked the rule of law,” said Nadler.
Trump commuted Stone’s sentence on Friday, saving him from having to appear in federal prison in Georgia to begin serving 40 months behind bars. In November, Stone was convicted of lying to Congress during the investigation into meddling in the Russian elections.
But can Congress investigate a president’s leniency grant?
As recently as last week, in its decision in Trump’s subpoena case, the Supreme Court said Congress’s power to investigate is tied to its power to make laws. It can demand information only if “it is related to and in support of a legitimate task of Congress,” and its investigations must serve a “valid legislative purpose.”
The court has repeatedly ruled on this limitation of Congress’s power, a conclusion it first expressed in 1927: that each House of Congress has the power to “secure the information necessary” to legislate. He highlighted the same point in a different way in a 1957 case, and ruled that “there is no power of Congress to expose for the sake of exposition.”
Because the Constitution gives the President unlimited power to grant clemency for federal crimes, there is no legislative hook that allows Congress to investigate.
This same problem arose in 2001 when Republicans in Congress wanted to investigate President Bill Clinton’s last-minute pardons. As then-House General Counsel Stan Brand said, “It’s not a matter for Congress.”
