Thank you Chairman Linder and Members of the Subcommittee for inviting me here today to talk about a very important subject. I am very concerned about the testimony we have heard today, and I regret to report that we have experienced similar problems in the Judiciary Committee for some time. I commend you for calling this hearing because it should serve to illustrate that this is a broad, institutional problem.
Congressional oversight is one of the important aspects of American government.
As every high school civics student can relate, Congress makes the laws, and the executive branch, especially the Department of Justice, enforces the laws. We in Congress have a constitutional obligation to ensure that the laws are enforced in the manner Congress intended, and the Department of Justice has a constitutional duty to cooperate with Congressional oversight. Unfortunately, that is not how the Department of Justice has viewed congressional oversight. On the contrary, the Department has made a regular practice of delaying, ignoring or rejecting legitimate congressional requests for information. I experience this most dramatically last Congress when the Committee held oversight hearings to examine the Department of Justice's handling of the campaign finance investigation.