Word: subpoenaing
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...fact, a criminal investigation and trial conducted for the purpose of determining whether or not criminal acts have been committed and the guilt or innocence of individuals." Such a proceeding, the lawyers argued, exceeds Congress's constitutional powers. The answer asked Sirica to dismiss the committee's subpoena on a number of other grounds. It said that the court lacked jurisdiction over the President, that the Senate had not authorized the subpoena and that it was "unreasonably broad and oppressive...
...proceedings. They noted that the committee had received evidence, principally from former White House Counsel John Dean, that the President was involved in a crime-the Watergate cover-up-but that he refused to give up the tapes and memoranda that might exonerate him. The committee insisted that the subpoena was well within its "mandate and responsibility to ferret out all the facts regarding the Watergate affair, both to aid the Senate in its legislative function and ... to inform the public." For good measure, the committee lawyers projected themselves as preservers of the entire republican system of government: "Once...
...court has found it necessary to adjudicate but two questions for the present: 1) whether the court has jurisdiction to decide the issue of privilege, and 2) whether the court has authority to enforce the subpoena duces tecum [a subpoena requiring a person to appear before a court with whatever documents the court needs as evidence...
...burden here is on the President to define exactly what it is about his office that court process commanding the production of evidence cannot reach there. To be accurate, court process in the form of a subpoena duces tecum has already issued to the President, and he acknowledges that... courts possess authority to direct such subpoenas to him. A distinction is drawn, however, between authority to issue a subpoena and authority to command obedience to it. It is this second compulsory process that the President contends may not reach him. The burden yet remains with the President, however, to explain...
...important to note here the role of the grand jury. Chief Justice Marshall, in considering whether a subpoena might issue to the President of the United States, observed: "In the provisions of the Constitution, and of the statute, which give to the accused a right to the compulsory process of the court, there is no exception whatever...