So I have seen senate hearings before. But they seem like informal meetings where they ask for info from these organizations.
Is there any weight to them? Could they really just stone wall the senate and not really give a damn?
They have to respond to a summons, but are they held responsible for perjury? And can the senate really do anything if they don’t like something?
I don’t understand the point of it, if normally there is a court and legal system for this.
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It’s a crime to lie in Congressional hearings. If they are caught lying, they can be tried for perjury, if the DoJ chooses to charge them.
“Senate hearing” is a really broad term you hear in the media. most hearings are general fact finding missions……bil ABC has been introduced, lets have a hearing with experts 1/2/3/4/5/6 to explain some things
some hearings are criminal adjacent…….like was there improper use of funding or resources; was there lax record keeping
purgury is a real thing; refusing summons can come with jail……but the biggest thing is that media-wise its easy to sway public opinion based on someone refusing to meet with the senate
Courts are concerned with findings of guilt related to specific harms. Congressional investigations are about the “why and how”. A court is looking at “did X break the law” while congress is more “what did X do and did it harm the public, and if so do we need to make more laws about it or do the existing laws do a good job”. One example is the quiz show scandals of the 1950s. Congress was able to have hearings to find out that the shows were giving certain contestants the answers before the show to manipulate the outcome and improve ratings. They made laws to make this illegal.
Congress can investigate any topic that they have the power to legislate over. So, like, they couldn’t have a hearing about a local zoning issue because they couldn’t make a law about it. They can have a hearing about (to steal a plot line from Succession) a company covering up crimes on cruise ships because they could make laws cruise ship reporting or corporate destruction of documents. Maybe in those hearings they discover that other crimes occurred (usually things like perjury).
If you avoid the subpoena you can be in contempt of congress. If you lie there is perjury. Yeah, those aren’t huge deals on their own, but also they are the types of things that lead more investigations to turn their attention on the people who avoid it.
Politicians get to grandstand. They get to ask questions that make them look really serious, and ramble on for minutes, and then ask typically silly questions but don’t let the responder give complex answers…
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