•HRES 689 IH 
Whereas on July 25, 2007, the full Judiciary Committee 
voted, 22–17, to issue a report to the House recom-
mending that a resolution of contempt of Congress 
against Ms. Miers and Mr. Bolten be approved; 
Whereas the White House indicated that it would order the 
United States Attorney for the District of Columbia not 
to present the contempt of Congress citation for grand 
jury consideration, preventing Congress from fulfilling its 
constitutional role of oversight of the Executive Branch; 
Whereas the roots of Congress’ broad investigatory powers 
reach back to the establishment of the Constitution and 
which have been continually reaffirmed by the Supreme 
Court and, as George Mason recognized at the Constitu-
tional Convention in 1787, Members of Congress ‘‘are 
not only Legislators but they possess inquisitorial power. 
They must meet frequently to inspect the Conduct of the 
public offices.’’; 
Whereas Woodrow Wilson wrote in his 1885 book, Congres-
sional Government, ‘‘Quite as important as legislation is 
vigilant oversight of administration . . . The argument is 
not only that a discussed and interrogated administration 
is the only pure and efficient administration, but, more 
than that, that the only really self-governing people is 
that people which discusses and interrogates its adminis-
tration.’’; 
Whereas in Nixon v. Sirica (1973), a panel of the District of 
Columbia Circuit rejected President Nixon’s claim that 
he was absolutely immune from all compulsory process 
whenever he asserted a formal claim of executive privi-
lege, holding that while presidential conversations are 
‘‘presumptively privileged’’, the presumption could be 
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•HRES 689 IH 
overcome by an appropriate showing of public need by 
the branch seeking access to the conversations; 
Whereas in United States v. Nixon (1974), the Court ruled 
that a president’s communications with his close advisors 
were ‘‘presumptively privileged’’, not absolutely privi-
leged; 
Whereas the Reagan Administration stated in 1984 in re-
sponse to Congressional subpoenas of the Department of 
Justice investigative files, ‘‘These principles [of executive 
privilege] will not be employed to shield documents which 
contain evidence of criminal or unethical conduct by 
agency officials from proper review.’’; 
Whereas White House Counsel to the Clinton Administration, 
Lloyd Cutler, stated in a memo dated September 28, 
1994, ‘‘[i]n circumstances involving communications re-
lating to investigations of personal wrongdoing by govern-
ment officials, it is our practice not to assert executive 
privilege, either in judicial proceedings or in congres-
sional investigations and hearing.’’; and 
Whereas executive privilege is rooted in the need for confiden-
tiality to ensure that presidential decision making is of 
the highest caliber, informed by honest advice and knowl-
edge, and is limited to apply in only those instances 
where the Constitution provides that the President alone 
must make a decision: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That it is the Sense of the House of Rep-
resentatives that, in the interest of full disclosure con-
sistent with principles of openness in governmental oper-
ations, that— 
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•HRES 689 IH 
(1) the House of Representatives urges the 
President of the United States to immediately call 
upon his current and former associates and ap-
pointees, and the associates of those individuals, who 
have asserted executive privilege to avoid testifying 
in congressional investigations, to come forward and 
testify fully and truthfully before the relevant com-
mittees of Congress; and 
(2) that the President of the United States 
should use all legal means at his disposal to compel 
people to cooperate with the investigation. 
Æ 
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