Even in cases of presidential impeachment, a House resolution has never, in fact, been required to begin an impeachment inquiry. In the case of President Johnson, a resolution “authoriz[ing]” HJC “to inquire into the official conduct of Andrew Johnson” was passed after HJC “was already considering the subject.” 3 Hinds Ch. 75 § 2400. In the case of President Nixon, HJC started its investigation well before the House passed a resolution authorizing an impeachment inquiry. See 3 Deschler Ch. 14, § 15 (Parliamentarian’s Note) (noting that even before “the adoption of” the Nixon impeachment-inquiry resolution, “House Resolution 803,” HJC “had been conducting an investigation into the charges of impeachment against President Nixon,” such as by “hir[ing] special counsel for the impeachment inquiry”).35 In the case of President Clinton, the D.C. Circuit authorized the disclosure of grand jury materials to Congress on July 7, 1998, see HJC App., Ex. Q, Order, In re Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan Assoc., Div. No. 94-1 (D.C. Cir. Spec. Div. July 7, 1998) (per curiam), ECF No. 1-18, even though no impeachment resolution had yet been adopted and was not adopted by the House until four months later, see H. R. Res. 525, 105th Cong. (1998) (authorizing, on October 8, 1998, HJC to “investigate fully and completely whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to exercise its constitutional power to impeach” President Clinton).36

While close scrutiny of the historical record undercuts that justification for the “House resolution” test proposed by Representative Collins, the more significant flaw with this proposal is as follows: while this test may address political legitimacy concerns, which are best resolved in the political arena, no governing law requires this test—not the Constitution, not House Rules, and not Rule 6(e), and so imposing this test would be an impermissible intrusion on the House’s constitutional authority both to “determine the rules of its proceedings” under the Rulemaking Clause, U.S. CONST., Art. I, § 5, cl. 2, and to exercise “the sole power of Impeachment” under the Impeachment Clause, id. § 2, cl. 5. This Court “ha[s] no authority to impose,” by judicial order, a particular structure on House proceedings. Mazars, 2019 WL 5089748, at *24. In Mazars, for example, the D.C. Circuit rejected the position that enforcement of a House Oversight and Reform Committee subpoena of a third-party’s records related to President Trump and his business associates was inappropriate until the “full House” granted the Committee “express authority to subpoena the President for his personal financial records.” Id. at *24 (internal quotation marks omitted). Citing the Constitution’s Rulemaking Clause, the D.C. Circuit explained that “unless and until Congress adopts a rule that offends the Constitution, the courts get no vote in how each chamber chooses to run its internal affairs.” Id.; see also Barker v. Conroy, 921 F.3d 1118, 1130 (D.C. Cir. 2019) (noting that “‘making the Rules . . . [is] a power that the Rulemaking Clause reserves to each House alone’” (quoting United States v. Rostenkowski, 59 F.3d 1291, 1306–07 (D.C. Cir. 1995)). This Court likewise lacks authority to require the House to pass a resolution tasking a committee with conducting an impeachment inquiry.

Representative Collins shifts gears with an alternative challenge to HJC’s petition, contending that, even if no House rule prohibits HJC from beginning an impeachment investigation without a House resolution, the House has not “delegate[d] such authority to the Committee,” and HJC has no powers except those expressly granted to it. Collins Mem. at 6. Pressing this point, he argues that the House has thus far delegated only “legislative and oversight authority to the Committee,” not “impeachment authority,” id. at 5, and, further, that the Speaker of the House may not “unilaterally delegate to the Committee the House’s impeachment power,” id. at 13–14. These contentions are, at worst, red herrings and, at best, incorrect.

At the outset, the distinction drawn by Representative Collins between Congress’s “legislative and oversight authority” and Congress’s “impeachment authority,” is not so rigid as he makes out. Nothing “in the Constitution or case law . . . compels Congress to abandon its legislative role at the first scent of potential illegality and confine itself exclusively to the impeachment process.” Mazars, 2019 WL 5089748, at *18.37 In any event, the House has sufficiently delegated to HJC the authority to conduct an impeachment inquiry in at least two ways. Jefferson’s Manual—which under House Rule XXI “‘govern[s] the House in all cases to which [it is] applicable and in which [it is] not inconsistent with the Rules and orders of the House’”—provides that impeachment can be “set[] . . . in motion” by “a resolution introduced by a Member and referred to a committee” as well as “facts developed and reported by an investigating committee of the House.” Jefferson’s Manual § 603.38 Additionally, the full House has authorized, in Resolution 430, HJC to bring this suit and simultaneously granted HJC “any and all necessary authority under Article I of the Constitution.” H.R. Res. 430, 116th Cong. (as passed by House June 11, 2019) (emphases added).39

As to Representative Collins’ last point regarding the Speaker’s statement, HJC never claims that the Speaker possesses the power to authorize an impeachment inquiry solely by saying so. Rather, HJC points to the Speaker’s statement as evidence of the primary purpose of HJC’s investigation. The Speaker’s statement is, in fact, highly probative evidence on that score.40 Even DOJ does not dispute that statements made by the House Speaker may be probative in evaluating the “primary purpose” of HJC inquiries, as DOJ too has relied on the Speaker’s statements in its arguments about satisfaction of the “preliminarily to” requirement. See DOJ Resp. at 3, 26–27.