Legal experts on Monday offered their views on H.R. 743, the Executive Accountability Act of 2009 during testimony before the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.
The bill would place criminal penalties on the executive branch for willingly misleading Congress in order to persuade it to use armed forces.
Said Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-NC) who introduced the legislation, “Members of Congress must be able to trust our President at his word, especially when making decisions to go to war."
Jones used the behavior of former presidents Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush during the Vietnam and Iraq Wars as examples of “arrogance of power,” which he hoped could be mitigated by this legislation. However, Jones emphasized that “the bill is not about the past,” and emphasized that it would not be applied retroactively.
Dr. Louis Fisher, a specialist in constitutional law, said that the founders who wrote the Constitution knew that “single executives go to war not for the national interest; they go to war for reasons of military glory.” He said that the authority to “take the country from a state of peace to a state of war was to be given to Congress alone.”
Bruce Fein, a legal consultant and constitutional expert who served in the Department of Justice under President Reagan, said that the President could avoid criminal penalties by simply "sharing all of the information he relied upon to Congress.”
Jonathan F. Cohn, a partner at Sidley and Austin who worked in the Department of Justice under President George W. Bush, disagreed with the previous testimonies. He said that presidents should be “truthful and candid always, and especially in the context when the country makes the grave decision to send its children off to war.”
Cohn said the legislation could “impede inter-branch cooperation,” arguing that it could create a chilling effect due to the “fear of potential prosecution.”
“Punishing the ousted regime may be the preferred course of certain banana republics of the past, but with respect, this should not be the United States’ path in the 21st century.”
Constitutional Experts Discuss Law To Criminalize Presidential Lies To Congress
Legal experts on Monday offered their views on H.R. 743, the Executive Accountability Act of 2009 during testimony before the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.
The bill would place criminal penalties on the executive branch for willingly misleading Congress in order to persuade it to use armed forces.
Said Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-NC) who introduced the legislation, “Members of Congress must be able to trust our President at his word, especially when making decisions to go to war."
Jones used the behavior of former presidents Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush during the Vietnam and Iraq Wars as examples of “arrogance of power,” which he hoped could be mitigated by this legislation. However, Jones emphasized that “the bill is not about the past,” and emphasized that it would not be applied retroactively.
Dr. Louis Fisher, a specialist in constitutional law, said that the founders who wrote the Constitution knew that “single executives go to war not for the national interest; they go to war for reasons of military glory.” He said that the authority to “take the country from a state of peace to a state of war was to be given to Congress alone.”
Bruce Fein, a legal consultant and constitutional expert who served in the Department of Justice under President Reagan, said that the President could avoid criminal penalties by simply "sharing all of the information he relied upon to Congress.”
Jonathan F. Cohn, a partner at Sidley and Austin who worked in the Department of Justice under President George W. Bush, disagreed with the previous testimonies. He said that presidents should be “truthful and candid always, and especially in the context when the country makes the grave decision to send its children off to war.”
Cohn said the legislation could “impede inter-branch cooperation,” arguing that it could create a chilling effect due to the “fear of potential prosecution.”
“Punishing the ousted regime may be the preferred course of certain banana republics of the past, but with respect, this should not be the United States’ path in the 21st century.”