115th Congress Report – A Record of Abuse, Corruption, and Inaction

House Judiciary Democrats’ Efforts to Document the Failings of the Trump Administration & Lack of Oversight by the Republican Majority

***I have provided an excerpt of the document below.***

Executive Summary

Throughout the 115th Congress, House Judiciary Committee Democrats remained committed to pursuing active oversight of the executive branch. In ordinary times, under the leadership of either party, the Committee would have focused its attention on election security, enforcement of federal ethics rules, breaches of the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, allegations of obstruction of justice, and preserving the rule of law, among other matters.



But these are not ordinary times. The Trump Administration appears to have failed the country on all of these fronts at the same time. Committee Democrats pursued meaningful oversight throughout these past two years by, among other things, writing oversight letters to the Administration and House leadership, requesting minority hearings, seeking to discharge important bills from Committee and the House floor, offering motions to move into executive session, holding and participating in forums, forcing votes on resolutions of inquiry, requesting



and releasing reports, introducing oversight-related legislation, and filing lawsuits and amicus briefs.

The Committee published an interim report in April 2018, at which time the Democratic Members of the Committee had sent 64 letters to the Administrative and 39 letters to Republican Majority. This final report highlights more than 180 letters to the Administration during the 115th Congress regarding oversight of the President and federal agencies, and received responses to less than one-third of these requests. Furthermore, a majority of these responses were not substantive. The Members received no response to any of their correspondence to the Majority, and all resolutions of inquiry were rejected by a party-line vote in Committee. The silence speaks to an Administration run amok.

In November 2018—following the mid-term election—then Ranking Member Nadler sent letters to Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, and Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar requesting responses to a number of letters that went unanswered throughout the Congress (oversight letters 168, 176, 177, 178, and 179). These letters addressed the Administration’s immigration and detention policies, its refusal to defend the Affordable Care Act in federal court, President Trump’s continued attacks on the FBI and Department of Justice, as well as a variety of questions regarding the Administration’s antipathy towards voting rights enforcement and failures to counter violent extremism and domestic terrorism.



The oversight efforts of the House Judiciary Committee Democrats during the 115th Congress include the following:

 Sent 187 oversight letters to the Administration (received responses to less than one-third of requests)

 Sent 9 letters to the Inspector General of the Department of Justice

 Sent 54 letters to the House Judiciary Committee and House Majority Leadership (no responses)

 Sent 14 oversight letters to outside entities

 Issued 1 request for a minority day of hearings

 Sent 2 committee discharge letters pursuant to House Rule XI, Clause (C)(2)

 Introduced 2 floor discharge petitions

 Introduced 3 motions to move into executive session

 Led 14 oversight-related press conferences

 Held and participated in 20 Democratic forums

 Released and assisted with 14 Reports

 Requested 7 Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports

 Introduced and supported 6 Resolutions of Inquiry

 Introduced 2 Censure Resolutions

 Introduced 96 oversight-related bills and resolutions

 Led or assisted in 2 lawsuits to preserve the rule of law

 Led 21 amicus briefs

***To read the rest of the report, you can download at the link below.***

Download the report



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