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 Congress is a crime under sections 1001, 1621, and 1623 of 

chapter 18, United States Code; 

Whereas testimony given before Congress, or any of the committees 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; 


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•HRES 97 IH 

Whereas, in 1792, a committee of the House of Representatives 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 recently 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 Congress, legal scholars, and historians that lying to Congress 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 Congress 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 Intelligence, who was questioned by Senator Ron Wyden, 


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•HRES 97 IH 

and was asked whether the NSA ‘‘collect[ed] any type of 

data at all on millions, or hundreds of millions of Americans’’, to which Clapper replied ‘‘No, sir’’, and ‘‘not 

wittingly’’, a response he later admitted was ‘‘clearly erroneous’’; 

(2) James Comey, former FBI Director, who was 

questioned by Senator Charles Grassley, and asked 

whether he had ever authorized someone to leak information to the media, to which he responded ‘‘no’’, despite 

reports from the Office of the Inspector General indicating his response was likely untrue; 

(3) John Brennan, former Director of the Central 

Intelligence Agency (CIA), who was questioned by Representative 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 members 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 unauthorized disclosure of information to the media, including 

three instances while McCabe was under oath; 

(5) Lois Lerner, former Director of the Exempt Organizations Unit of the Internal Revenue Service, who repeatedly made false statements to congressional investigators, and who denied that she had requested overly 

extensive and deeply intrusive information from conservative nonprofit organizations in an attempt in order to 


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•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 Associated 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, saying 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 warrant 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 Representative 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, therefore, be it 


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1 Resolved, 

2 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

3 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Justice for All Resolu4 tion’’. 

5 SEC. 2. SENSE OF CONGRESS. 

6 That it is the sense of the House of Representatives 

7 that the crime of lying to Congress, as defined in sections 

8 1001, 1621, and 1623 of chapter 18, United States Code, 

9 must be prosecuted equitably, without regard to politics 

10 or elections. 

Æ 


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