Page:Impeachment of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States — Report of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives.pdf/152

 to it." And President Washington was right, because "the sole Power" of impeachment includes "a right to inspect every paper and transaction in any department, otherwise the power of impeachment could never be exercised with any effect."

In 1833, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story emphasized the House's broad investigatory power in impeachments—and the importance of not permitting the President to obstruct such inquiries. In his influential Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, Justice Story addressed the interaction between impeachment and Presidential pardons. While doing so, he pointedly observed that "[t]he power of impeachment will generally be applied to persons holding high offices under the government; and it is of great consequence that the President should not have the power of preventing a thorough investigation of their conduct, or of securing them against the disgrace of a public conviction by impeachment."

In 1842, amid ongoing strife between the House and President John Tyler, the House took substantial steps toward an impeachment inquiry. During a dispute with President Tyler over the production of documents—which he ultimately provided—a Committee of the House confirmed its robust understanding of the power to investigate impeachable offenses:

"The House of Representatives has the sole power of impeachment. The President himself in the discharge of his most independent functions, is subject to the exercise of this power which implied the right of inquiry on the part of the House to the fullest and most unlimited extent. ... If the House possess the power to impeach, it must likewise possess all the incidents of that power—the power to compel the attendance of all witnesses and the production of all such papers as may be considered necessary to prove the charges on which impeachment is founded. If it did not, the power of impeachment conferred upon it by the Constitution would be nugatory. It could not exercise it with effect."

Consistent with this precedent, President James K. Polk "cheerfully admitted" in 1846 the right of the House to investigate the conduct of all government officers with a view to exercising its impeachment power. "In such a case," he wrote:

[T]he safety of the Republic would be the supreme law, and the power of the