Page:Impeachment of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States — Report of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives.pdf/153

 House in the pursuit of this object would penetrate into the most secret recesses of the Executive Departments. It could command the attendance of any and every agent of the Government, and compel them to produce all papers, public or private, official or unofficial, and to testify on oath to all facts within their knowledge.

President Andrew Johnson conducted himself in accordance with this understanding when the Judiciary Committee undertook an initial inquiry into grounds for impeachment. During that investigation, which occurred in 1867, the Committee obtained executive and Presidential records; interviewed cabinet officers and Presidential aides about cabinet meetings and conversations with the President; and examined a number of Presidential decisions, including Presidential pardons, the issuance of executive orders, the implementation of Congressional Reconstruction, and the vetoing of legislation. Multiple witnesses, moreover, answered questions about the opinions of the President, statements made by the President, and advice given to the President. Significantly, as this Committee has previously summarized, "[t]here is no evidence that [President] Johnson ever asserted any privilege to prevent disclosure of presidential conversations to the Committee, or failed to comply with any of the Committee's requests."

With only a few exceptions, invocations of the impeachment power largely subsided from 1868 to 1972. Yet even in that period, while objecting to acts of ordinary legislative oversight, Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, S. Grover Cleveland, and Theodore Roosevelt each noted that Congress could obtain a broader set of Executive Branch documents in an impeachment inquiry.

In 1973 and 1974, this Committee investigated whether President Nixon had committed "high Crimes and Misdemeanors." During that period, the Senate also investigated events relating to the Watergate break-in and its aftermath. Faced with these inquiries, President Nixon allowed senior administration officials to testify voluntarily in the Senate. As a result, many senior White House officials testified, including White House Counsel John W. Dean III, White House Chief of Staff H.R. "Bob" Haldeman, Deputy Assistant to the President Alexander P. Butterfield, and Chief Advisor to the