Government Oversight
To advance its legislative agenda, the Judiciary Committee conducts regular oversight of the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, among other government agencies. The Committee is also responsible for determining whether to recommend articles of impeachment against federal officials. In 2019, the Committee advanced two articles of impeachment against Donald J. Trump to the House of Representatives.
More on Government Oversight
Yesterday, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), House Education and Workforce Committee Ranking Member Bobby Scott (D-VA) and House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice Ranking Member Steve Cohen (D-TN) issued a letter to U.S.
House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) released the following statement after the White House unveiled its roadmap for closing the U.S. military prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba:
Earlier this week, through a court order, the United States government demanded that Apple Inc. help the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) develop software in an effort to break the encryption on an iPhone that was recovered after the recent shootings in San Bernardino, California. The government cited the "All Writs Act," enacted in 1789, to demand that the technology company create a new version of the iPhone operating system to circumvent several security features on the device. Apple has five days to respond to the court's order.
Today, all sixteen Democratic Members of the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary issued a letter to Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) requesting a hearing to examine the role of Emergency Financial Managers (EFM) in financially distressed cities in Michigan.
"I commend the Chairman for bringing H.R. 759 before the Committee today. It is critical, as part of the Committee's efforts to reform our criminal justice system, that we take action to improve our federal prisons, and I am pleased that today we will consider a bipartisan, substitute amendment to this bill which will establish a better way of operating our prisons.
"The massive growth of our prison population is a crisis in both human and fiscal terms. Over the past four decades, the U.S. prison population has skyrocketed.
"Debates about the proper scope of executive power and its relationship to legislative authority are as old as the Nation itself.
"As the Committee charged with examining issues arising under our Constitution, it is important that we regularly discuss such fundamental matters about our Nation's basic governing framework.
"Today's resolution, which would establish an 'Executive Overreach Task Force' for the next 6 months, is ostensibly the latest effort to fulfill this important obligation.