A congressional panel dedicated to studying abuses of power by the Obama administration was inconveniently forced to look ahead at what November’s election might mean for the constitutional balance of powers.
The GOP-created Task Force on Executive Overreach featured witness testimony on Thursday who alleged that President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal and the Paris Climate agreement were illegal treaties—claims that have been refuted by a number of legal scholars.
The proceedings were derailed early on, however, by Donald Trump.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee was on Capitol Hill at the time meeting with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) and GOP leadership. Democrats on the task force took advantage of the conclave to snap rhetorical jabs at their colleagues on the other side.
“You think you got a problem with executive overreach now,” Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) said in remarks at the onset of the hearing, “if there’s a President Trump, the Congress will hardly exist.”
He added in jest about the businessman, “if he becomes president you got comb-over over-reach, you got all kind of overs and no unders.”
On a more serious note, Cohen went on to offer a glimpse into how Congress would be diminished by Trump White House, using the media circus around the Trump-Ryan meeting as an example.
“Here we are pretending to do government and nobody’s really here, and everybody’s watching the show,” he said. “We’re not the show. It is all going to be a show.”
Rep. Darrell Issa (D-Calif.), who has endorsed the Donald, argued that Rep. Cohen’s statements illustrate exactly why legislation is needed to empower Congress to rein in executive overreach.
“If we measure that there have been overreaches under this administration and anticipate under the next administration,” Issa began, “wouldn’t the gentleman agree that legislation that specifically empowers the House to be a more effective balancing act over executive overreach be paramount right now, before the great hair revolution begins?”
“I don’t disagree with you,” Cohen responded.
Thursday’s meeting was the third convened by the task force since it was chartered by the House Judiciary Committee in January. The committee’s chairman, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) instructed the panel “to study this troubling trend and also look for solutions to prevent the executive branch from exceeding its constitutional authority.”
In prepared remarks during the hearing, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) said the task force had missed its mark by not focusing on executive overreach on the battlefield.
“We could consider whether our nation’s current military operations against the Islamic State of Iran and Syria have been properly authorized by Congress,” he said.
“Unfortunately today’s hearing may be turning into an attack against the current administration,” Rep. Conyers added.
