RW Radio Hack Claims Constitution Does not Grant Congress Powers of Investigation, is Refuted by Founders

Even as Rupert Murdoch-owned print outlets The Wall Street Journal and New York Post both published op-eds declaring Donald Trump unfit to be President…, as discussed in this linked discussion on NPR…

…”(Michael) MARTIN: So what caught your eye about these editorials from the Murdoch publications?

(David) FOLKENFLIK: Well, it was really a one-two punch. You had, at 5:39 p.m., The New York Post say, as you said, that Donald Trump had been shown by the revelations and the evidence set forth in those hearings to be unfit for office and explicitly pointed to the 2024 race and say he should not be welcomed back into the race or into the Oval Office. And then you had The Wall Street Journal post a similarly powerful piece talking about this being a test of his character, a test through crisis as many presidents face, and that he had utterly failed that test.

The second thing that really struck me was that The Wall Street Journal’s post was just, I think, 73 minutes later. And so you have the tabloid of the Murdochs and the high-end sort of considered quality daily of the Murdochs saying the same thing with slightly different language a little more than an hour apart.”

…on the misinformation mothership, Fox News, Right Wing Radio hack Mark Levin used his airtime to dispute Congress’s authority to conduct investigations, implicate Nancy Pelosi as “a witness” to the insurrection, bemoan poor embarrassed Josh Holly’s treatment by the committee, and, for some reason, ineffectually name drop Baron de Montesquieu, who is credited with with advancing the political axiom of separation of powers, whose ideas serve no true purpose in an argument about the nature of those powers under the U.S. Constitution, but does serve to show that Levin knows how to pronounce “Montesquieu” and lend some desperately needed intellectual heft to his false pronouncements.

The video:

But which article allows @marklevinshow to humiliate himself on a daily basis? https://t.co/HYmuT3zgUe

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) July 25, 2022

As you will note, Levin hangs his argument on the fact that Article 1 of the Constitution does not explicitly state that The House of Representatives has the power to conduct investigations, though how they would fulfill their legislative function and serve as a “balance of power” to the Executive Branch the founders created without that right remains unclear in Levin’s rant.

If Levin had read his founding fathers as assiduously as he supposedly has his Montesquieu, he might have found these words by George Mason and James Wilson, who actually attended the Constitutional Convention, instead of just lying about it on Fox News.

George Mason:

(“Members of Congress) “are not only Legislators but they possess inquisitorial powers. They must meet frequently to inspect the Conduct of the public offices.”

James Wilson:

The constitutional framers assumed that Congress would conduct investigations as the British House of Commons conducted them. James Wilson of Pennsylvania, a future Supreme Court Justice and Convention delegate, wrote in a 1774 essay that members of the Commons were considered ”grand inquisitors of the realm. The proudest ministers of the proudest monarchs have trembled at their censures; and have appeared at the bar of the house, to give an account of their conduct, and ask pardon for their faults.”When the U.S. House convened in 1789, it established an early set of select committees, such as Rules and Ways and Means, to structure the legislative process including investigations.”

As Levin might see, if he only broadened his reading a bit, The House does indeed, have powers of investigation, bestowed implicitly by the founders own words at the time of it’s writing – if not explicitly laid out in the document itself.

In short, Mark.

Nancy Pelosi had no part in the insurrection save avoiding becoming a victim because of it, The House of Representatives has “inquisitorial” powers that should make “monarchs tremble” in the words of founders themselves, and Josh Holly and Donald Trump embarrassed themselves through their own actions.

Any other conclusion would only be fit for your Radio propaganda or Fox News.