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 Con-
gress is a crime under sections 1001, 1621, and 1623 of 
chapter 18, United States Code; 
Whereas testimony given before Congress, or any of the com-
mittees 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; 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
22:51 Feb 04, 2019
Jkt 089200
PO 00000
Frm 00001
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR97.IH
HR97
kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS
•HRES 97 IH 
Whereas, in 1792, a committee of the House of Representa-
tives 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 re-
cently 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 Con-
gress, legal scholars, and historians that lying to Con-
gress 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 Con-
gress 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 In-
telligence, who was questioned by Senator Ron Wyden, 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
22:51 Feb 04, 2019
Jkt 089200
PO 00000
Frm 00002
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR97.IH
HR97
kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS
•HRES 97 IH 
and was asked whether the NSA ‘‘collect[ed] any type of 
data at all on millions, or hundreds of millions of Ameri-
cans’’, to which Clapper replied ‘‘No, sir’’, and ‘‘not 
wittingly’’, a response he later admitted was ‘‘clearly er-
roneous’’; 
(2) James Comey, former FBI Director, who was 
questioned by Senator Charles Grassley, and asked 
whether he had ever authorized someone to leak informa-
tion to the media, to which he responded ‘‘no’’, despite 
reports from the Office of the Inspector General indi-
cating his response was likely untrue; 
(3) John Brennan, former Director of the Central 
Intelligence Agency (CIA), who was questioned by Rep-
resentative 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 mem-
bers 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 unau-
thorized disclosure of information to the media, including 
three instances while McCabe was under oath; 
(5) Lois Lerner, former Director of the Exempt Or-
ganizations Unit of the Internal Revenue Service, who re-
peatedly made false statements to congressional inves-
tigators, and who denied that she had requested overly 
extensive and deeply intrusive information from conserv-
ative nonprofit organizations in an attempt in order to 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
22:51 Feb 04, 2019
Jkt 089200
PO 00000
Frm 00003
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR97.IH
HR97
kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS
•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 As-
sociated 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, say-
ing 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 war-
rant 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 Rep-
resentative 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, there-
fore, be it 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
22:51 Feb 04, 2019
Jkt 089200
PO 00000
Frm 00004
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR97.IH
HR97
kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS
•HRES 97 IH 
Resolved, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Justice for All Resolu-
tion’’. 
SEC. 2. SENSE OF CONGRESS. 
That it is the sense of the House of Representatives 
that the crime of lying to Congress, as defined in sections 
1001, 1621, and 1623 of chapter 18, United States Code, 
must be prosecuted equitably, without regard to politics 
or elections. 
Æ 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
22:51 Feb 04, 2019
Jkt 089200
PO 00000
Frm 00005
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6301
E:\BILLS\HR97.IH
HR97
kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS