An End to ‘Complete and Utter Abdication’

United States Congressman Jerry Nadler spoke to a crowd of several hundred Battery Park City residents in the auditorium of P.S./I.S. 276 three weeks ago, during the annual meeting of the Gateway Plaza Tenants Association. During that talk, he offered a preview of what might happen, “if the Democrats take control of the House of Representatives in the upcoming election, which would mean that I would become chairman of the Judiciary Committee.”

Because the Democratic Party now appears to have won control of the lower house of Congress, Mr. Nadler will likely soon move from serving as the ranking member (meaning the most senior member of the minority party) on that panel, and into its top position. The Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction over federal courts, administrative agencies and Federal law enforcement agencies. It may also be worth noting that the Committee is additionally responsible for the impeachment of federal officials.

Mr. Nadler, who was one of 67 Democratic members of Congress who refused to attend President Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2016, said, “we are faced now with attacks on the rule of law and on democratic governance that we haven’t seen probably since the Civil War. Look at the attacks on the free press. Who ever thought you’d hear the phrase ‘enemies of the people’ after Joseph Stalin died? That was too rough even for Nikita Khrushchev. The press is not an enemy of the people. They are one of the guardians of our liberties.”

He continued, “we’ve also seen attacks on the courts, the FBI, and the Department of Justice, whenever they’ve tried to investigate the White House.”

“How can you have a situation in which anybody applying for asylum is detained for months and months as if it were a crime to apply for asylum.”

Mr. Nadler added that, “one of the key duties of Congress is to act as a check on the executive. And the greatest failing of this Congress,” meaning the Republican-dominated 115th Congress, which began its work in January, 2017, and will formally dissolve in eight weeks, when the new Democratic majority is sworn in, “has been its complete and utter abdication in this role. It has been unwilling to hold hearings and has not even tried to hold this administration accountable.”

For historical context, Mr. Nadler observed, “whenever we’ve had a Congress from the same political party as the president, whether Democratic and Republican, the degree of oversight is always less critical, less tough. But it has always been there — until now. This time, Congress has completely abdicated any oversight role.”

“How can it be,” he asked, “that we have the government of the United States tearing families apart at the borders, tearing babies away from their mothers? How can this happen with no hearings, no investigations, without Congress saying ‘what the hell is going on’ and ‘under what authority are you doing this?'”

“How can you have a situation,” he asked, “in which anybody applying for asylum is detained for months and months as if it were a crime to apply for asylum.”

He added, “we also had attacks on LBGT rights, women’s rights, and voting rights — all without any hearings.”

“There are two things the Judiciary Committee should be looking into,” Mr. Nadler said, anticipating the moment when he would lead the panel. “The first is the conflicts of interest between the president’s public duty and his private interests. When the President seems to make excuses for savage conduct by government of Saudi Arabia, is it because that is his conception, right or wrong, of the national interest of the United States? Or is it because he has business interests in Saudi Arabia?”

Citing another example, he said, “when the President has certain relationships with the Russians, is that because of his judgment about the national interest? Or it is because that’s where a lot of money for Trump hotels comes from?”

“Every time a Saudi delegation stays in the President’s hotel in Washington, that’s money in his pocket. That’s a terrible conflict of interest. And our committee, when we control the agenda, will look into this.”

Mr. Nadler noted that, “the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution prohibits the President from accepting anything from a foreign government without prior consent from Congress. This is designed to make sure that the President, or any public officer of the United States, does not have divided loyalties. So that an elected official doesn’t have second thoughts, like, “if I pursue this policy, which I probably ought to, how will that affect my business?’ Every time a Saudi delegation stays in the President’s hotel in Washington, that’s money in his pocket. That’s a terrible conflict of interest. And our committee, when we control the agenda, will look into this.”

The second focus of inquiry under a Nadler-led Judiciary Committee, he said, “touches on the Affordable Care Act [ACA], but is emblematic of a larger issue. The ACA says that if you get insurance from any source, the seller cannot discriminate against the 100 million Americans who have some kind of pre-existing condition. But the Trump tax bill repealed the mandate that everybody must have insurance. Now, a lawsuit by 17 state Attorneys General, all of them Republicans, says that because of the repeal contained in tax bill, the clause about pre-existing conditions is unconstitutional.”

He noted that, “a traditional duty of the Department of Justice is to defend in court the constitutionality of any law duly enacted by Congress and signed by the president. But Trump’s Department of Justice has refused to defend the constitutionality of the ACA.”

“If they can get away with this,” Mr. Nadler continued, “they can effectively nullify any law they don’t like. Not by persuading Congress to repeal it, but instead by getting somebody to challenge it in court and then refusing to defend it. They’ve done the same thing with challenges to voting rights laws. So we’re going to look into political decisions by the Department of Justice not to defend laws that are challenged in court.”

Finally, he said, “our committee will also to defend the Mueller investigation — not only to get to the bottom of what happened in 2016, but also to preserve the integrity of future elections.”