Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-715_febh.pdf
Page Number: 28

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

3 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

eral power includes the grant of incidental powers for car-
rying it out.”  Bray, “Necessary and Proper” and “Cruel and
Unusual”: Hendiadys in the Constitution, 102 Va. L. Rev.
687, 741 (2016).

The scope of these implied powers is very limited.  The 
Constitution  does  not  sweep  in  powers  “of  inferior  im-
portance, merely because they are inferior.”  McCulloch v. 
Maryland,  4  Wheat.  316,  408  (1819).    Instead,  Congress 
“can claim no powers which are not granted to it by the con-
stitution, and the powers actually granted, must be such as 
are  expressly  given,  or  given  by  necessary  implication.” 
Martin  v.  Hunter’s  Lessee,  1  Wheat.  304,  326  (1816).  In 
sum, while the Committees’ theory of an implied power is
not categorically wrong, that power must be necessarily im-
plied from an enumerated power. 

II 
At the time of the founding, the power to subpoena pri-
vate, nonofficial documents was not included by necessary
implication in any of Congress’ legislative powers.  This un-
derstanding persisted for decades and is consistent with the
Court’s first decision addressing legislative subpoenas, Kil-
bourn v. Thompson, 103 U. S. 168 (1881).  The test that this 
Court  created  in  McGrain  v.  Daugherty,  273  U. S.  135 
(1927), and the majority’s variation on that standard today,
are without support as applied to private, nonofficial docu-
ments.1 

A 
The Committees argue that Congress wields the same in-
vestigatory powers that the British Parliament did at the 
time of the founding.  But this claim overlooks one of the 
fundamental differences between our Government and the 
British Government: Parliament was supreme.  Congress is 

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1 I express no opinion about the constitutionality of legislative subpoe-

nas for other kinds of evidence.