In re SEALED CASE (Three Cases).
Nos. 87-5261, 87-5264 and 87-5265.
United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.
Argued Sept. 16, 1987. Decided Jan. 22, 1988.
As Amended Feb. 5, 1988. Probable Jurisdiction Noted Feb. 22, 1988. See 108 S.Ct. 1010.
476
Thomas S. Martin with whom Anthony C. Epstein, David E. Zerhusen, David W. DeBruin and Carl S. Nadler, Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for appellant in 87-5264.
Earl C. Dudley, Jr., Deputy Independent Counsel, with whom Alexia Morrison, Independent Counsel and Richard C. Otto, Deputy Independent Counsel, Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for appellee in 87-5261, 87-5264 and 87-5265.
Douglas N. Letter, Dept. of Justice, with whom James M. Spears, Acting Asst. Atty. Gen., Robert J. Cynkar, Deputy Asst. Atty. Gen., Robert E. Kopp, William Kanter, Neil Koslowe, Jay S. Bybee, Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for amicus curiae, U.S., urging reversal.
Steven R. Ross, General Counsel to the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives, with whom Charles Tiefer, Deputy General Counsel, Michael L. Murray and Janina Jaruzelski, Asst Counsel to the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for amicus curiae, Speaker and Bipartisan Leadership Group of the U.S. House of Representatives, urging affirmance.
Herbert J. Miller, Jr., Randall J. Turk and Stephen L. Braga, Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for amicus curiae, Michael K. Deaver, urging reversal.
Eric R. Glitzenstein and Alan B. Morrison, Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for amicus curiae, Public Citizen, urging affirmance.
Donald J. Simon, Washington, D.C., Cass Sunstein, Laurence H. Tribe, Cambridge, Mass., Archibald Cox and Philip B. Heyman, Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for amicus curiae, Common Cause, urging affirmance.
Rex E. Lee, Irvin B. Nathan, Washington, D.C., and Robert MacCrate, New York City, were on the brief, for amicus curiae, American Bar Ass‘n, urging affirmance.
Lawrence E. Walsh, Independent Counsel, Paul L. Friedman, Guy Miller Struve and James E. McCollum, Jr., Associate Counsel, Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for amicus curiae, Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh, urging affirmance.
Michael Davidson, Senate Legal Counsel, Ken U. Benjamin, Jr., Deputy Senate Legal Counsel, Morgan J. Frankel and Susan B. Fine, Asst. Senate Legal Counsel, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for amicus curiae, U.S. Senate, urging affirmance.
Before RUTH BADER GINSBURG, SILBERMAN, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.
Three former government officials, Theodore B. Olson, previously Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, Carol E. Dinkins, previously Assistant Attorney General, Lands Division,1 and Edward C. Schmults, previously Deputy Attorney General of the United States, appeal from a district court judgment rejecting their challenge to the authority of a federal prosecutor, the independent counsel, appointed under the provisions of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978,
I.
The criminal investigation involved in this case arose out of a heated dispute over document production between the Executive and Legislative Branches. In September 1982, two subcommittees of the House of Representatives requested the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA“) to provide them with internal EPA documents pertaining to the clean-up of hazardous waste sites. The House was concerned that the Reagan administration was expending funds so as to aid Republican candidates in the 1982 Senate elections. At the direction of the Department of Justice, the EPA made some documents available but refused to grant access to enforcement-sensitive documents on the grounds that their release would interfere with law enforcement efforts. After negotiations between the two branches failed, the two subcommittees issued subpoenas to the Administrator of the EPA. The Administrator, invoking executive privilege by order of the President, refused to comply with the subpoenas. The House of Representatives responded by citing the Administrator for contempt, at which point the Administrator and the United States together filed a lawsuit against the House. Eventually, by March of 1983, the Administrator and the two subcommittees reached agreement on document production.
Ancillary to this running battle between Congress and the Executive, a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee began an investigation into the Justice Department‘s role in the EPA document controversy. On March 10, 1983, as part of that investigation, the subcommittee heard testimony from Assistant Attorney General Olson. At the completion of the investigation, the Judiciary Committee issued a lengthy report, over the vigorous dissent of the Republican members of the Committee, containing charges of serious wrongdoing by senior Department of Justice officials. REPORT ON INVESTIGATION OF THE ROLE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE IN THE WITHHOLDING OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY DOCUMENTS FROM CONGRESS IN 1982-83, H.R.REP. No. 435, 99th Cong., 1st Sess. (1985).
Based on this report, in December 1985 the Judiciary Committee requested the Attorney General to conduct a preliminary investigation, as required by the independent counsel provisions of the Ethics in Government Act, into possible violations of federal law on the part of several administration officials who appeared before the Judiciary Committee, including former Assistant Attorney General Olson. The Act applies to the President and Vice President, the Director and Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, cabinet-level officials, various other officials in the Department of Justice and in the Executive Office of the President, and high level offi
Under the Act, the Attorney General must begin an investigation, to be completed within ninety days, if he finds the information of wrongdoing given him “sufficient to constitute grounds to investigate.”
On April 10, 1986 the Attorney General asked the Special Court to appoint an independent counsel to investigate
[w]hether the conduct of former Assistant Attorney General Theodore Olson in giving testimony at a hearing of the Subcommittee on Monopolies and Commercial Law of the House Judiciary Committee on March 10, 1983, and later revising that testimony, regarding the completeness of the Office of Legal Counsel‘s response to the Judiciary Committee‘s request for OLC documents, and regarding his knowledge of EPA‘s willingness to turn over certain disputed documents to Congress, violated
18 U.S.C. § 1505 ,§ 1001 , or any other provision of federal criminal law.
Report of the Attorney General Pursuant to
The Judiciary Committee‘s request for an investigation also pointed to possible wrongdoing by Edward Schmults and Carol Dinkins. The Attorney General concluded, however, that there were no reasonable grounds to believe that further investigation of these allegations was warranted and so did not refer these matters to the independent counsel. Id. at 22, 47-48. In deciding whether to refer a matter to the independent counsel, the Attorney General is required by
In April of 1986 the Special Court appointed James McKay as independent counsel. Shortly thereafter, upon McKay‘s resignation, the Special Court appointed Alexia Morrison to replace him. In November 1986 Morrison applied to the Attorney General, pursuant to
Faced with the Attorney General‘s refusal to broaden her authority, the independent counsel applied to the Special Court, pursuant to
Soon after the release of the Special Court‘s opinion, the independent counsel subpoenaed Edward Schmults, Theodore Olson, and Carol Dinkins to appear before a grand jury. The three appellants moved to quash the subpoenas on grounds that the independent counsel provisions of the Act were unconstitutional. On July 20, the district court upheld the constitutionality of the independent counsel provisions. In re Sealed Case, No. 87-0197 (D.D.C.1987) (mem). In order to pursue their challenge to the Act on appeal, the appellants refused to appear before the grand jury and were held in contempt pursuant to
The appellants contend that the Act‘s appointment provision, its restriction on removal, and its vesting of supervisory powers in an Article III court are unconstitutional. They argue that placing the appointment of the independent counsel in the Special Court violates the appointments clause, the doctrine of separation of powers, and Article III of the Constitution. And they claim that restrictions on the President‘s power to supervise and remove the independent counsel interfere with the President‘s ability to execute the law. More broadly, appellants assert that the Act as a whole jettisons traditional adherence to constitutional doctrines of separation of powers and a unitary executive, and in so doing, seriously weakens constitutional structures that serve to protect individual liberty. For the reasons set forth below,
II.
Two hundred years after the adoption of the United States Constitution the federal courts are, essentially for the first time, required to construe closely the appointments clause of Article II. Appellants claim that the independent counsel is not an “inferior” officer as that term is used in the clause and therefore she may be appointed only through nomination by the President and confirmation by the Senate. Since all parties agree that the independent counsel is an officer of the United States and not an employee, her appointment by the Special Division of this court would, if appellants are correct in their interpretation of the clause, be unconstitutional.
The appointments clause provides that the President
shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
Two classes of officers of the United States are contemplated by the clause, those who must be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, whom we shall refer to as principal officers, and inferior officers, who, if authorized by legislation, can be appointed by heads of departments, courts of law, or the President alone. The independent counsel, supported by various amici, contends that the only officers who must be appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate and not otherwise are Supreme Court Judges, ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls. All other officers of the United States, they argue, including department heads and federal judges, are inferior officers who could, if legislation authorized it, be appointed in accordance with the second part of the clause.
We think that this is an unnatural reading of the clause, for the first part of the clause insists that not only Judges and Ambassadors must be appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate, but also all other officers of the United States “whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for.” “Herein” must refer to at least the clause itself and thus perforce includes inferior officers who may be appointed in accordance with the second portion of the clause.7 It follows that the term “all other Officers of the United States” encompasses more than the inferior officers described in the second part of the clause because that part is phrased as an exception to the “all other Officers” language. Otherwise—under the independent counsel‘s interpretation—“all other Officers” are, each and every one, inferior officers and thus the phrase requiring presidential appointment with the advice and consent of the Senate for “all other Officers” not “otherwise provided for” is utterly without meaning. Among the officers who must be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate it seems most obvious to include the heads of departments and federal judges since they are specifically empowered (along with the President to whom they are linked in the clause) to appoint inferior officers. In fact, as we discuss further in Part III, the purpose of the excepting clause was to ensure that courts of law and heads of departments could appoint officers inferior to them; it was certainly not meant to allow the appointment of department heads without the advice and consent of the Senate.8
A single clause of the Constitution should not be interpreted inconsistently with the remainder of the Constitution. Hostetter v. Idlewild Bon Voyage Liquor Corp., 377 U.S. 324, 332 (1964). Central to the government instituted by the Constitution are the doctrines of separation of powers and a unitary executive, which we discuss at length in Part III, and yet the independent counsel interprets the appointments clause as if those doctrines were nonexistent. Understanding that the President could not fulfill his constitutional role by himself, the Framers envisioned that the Executive Branch would be divided into departments whose officers would be appointed by the President and who could be removed by Congress only through the impeachment process. See Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 (1926). It strains belief that in the face of this scheme the Framers would insert a clause into the Constitution that would allow Congress, the branch most feared by the Framers, see THE FEDERALIST NO. 48 (J. Madison); see also Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U.S. 714 (1986), to abrogate the President‘s power to appoint Executive Branch officers.
Not only does the independent counsel‘s interpretation seem inconsistent with the language of the clause and the remainder of the Constitution, it makes, to our view, no functional sense. “The men who met in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 were practical statesmen, experienced in politics,” Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 121 (1976), and therefore would not have drafted an appointments clause that had a capricious meaning. Yet appellee‘s suggested interpretation has, we are forced to conclude, just that capricious character. If department heads and federal judges (other than Supreme Court Justices) are inferior officers, then it presumably follows that any one department head could be authorized, consistent with the Constitution, to appoint all of the rest and all the federal judges to boot. And of course, a federal court could instead be given the reciprocal power to appoint all department heads and all the rest of the federal judges. To be sure, it would not have been illogical for the Framers to leave to subsequent legislation all procedures for appointment of officers or to limit those appointments only by the second portion of the appointments clause (requiring appointment by the President, courts of law, or department heads). But having specially provided that the President “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint... all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for,” it is implausible to suggest that the Framers intended that no officers, even heads of departments, had to be appointed in this fashion. In fact, the statutes enacted by the First Congress creating the various executive departments are silent regarding the mode of appointment of the principal officers of those departments, thereby suggesting that the legislators believed that they had no choice in the matter because they understood the Constitution to require that principal officers be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate and therefore it was not necessary to provide for appointment in the statute itself.10
Even though the Framers surely contemplated that ambassadors and consuls would be subordinate to the head of the Department of Foreign Affairs, we can readily understand why these officers nevertheless were thought of as principal rather than inferior. In the eighteenth century, a minister posted abroad had to exercise a good deal of independent judgment—certainly more than is the case today—simply because communications were so much slower than now.13 Similarly, lower federal judges who, according to our reading of the clause, are principal officers, although of course subordinate in a sense to the Supreme Court, are not subject to personal supervision. The Supreme Court, in the exercise of its power to affirm, reverse, or modify, supervises cases—not judges who, appointed for life, are in a supervisory sense not inferior to anyone.14
The only judicial support the independent counsel musters for her construction of the appointments clause is United States v. Germaine, 99 U.S. (9 Otto) 508 (1878). In that case, the Supreme Court held that a part-time surgeon appointed by the Commissioner of Pensions was not an officer of the United States because, inter alia, the Commissioner of Pensions was not a department head. In preliminary discussion, the Court described inferior officers as inferior to those “specially mentioned” in the appointments clause, id. 99 U.S. at 510, and the independent counsel asserts that the only officers “specially mentioned” are Judges of the Supreme Court, ambassadors, etc. We disagree. There is no reason to infer that by “specially mentioned,” the Court meant to
The word inferior is not here used in that vague, indefinite, and quite inaccurate sense which has been suggested—the sense of petty or unimportant; but it means subordinate or inferior to those officers in whom respectively the power of appointment may be vested—the President, the courts of law, and the heads of departments.
Moreover, the Court in Germaine included department heads among the principal officers of whom the President, in the same section of the Constitution, is authorized to require an opinion in writing. Since the Court regarded the department heads as principal officers, it could not have meant department heads to be regarded at the same time as inferior officers within the meaning of the appointments clause.
We therefore reject the independent counsel‘s construction of the appointments clause, but we are still confronted with the question whether the independent counsel is an inferior officer—for under the clause, only if she is an inferior officer can she be appointed without action by the President and without the advice and consent of the Senate. The answer to that question de
The independent counsel relies almost entirely on her basic construction of the clause and only briefly makes what could be construed as the alternative argument that even under our reading of the clause she is nonetheless an inferior officer. She contends that since the Attorney General can appoint, and has appointed, independent counsel with precisely the authority and duties that she enjoys by virtue of her court appointment and because such authority has been sustained by this court, In re Sealed Case, 829 F.2d 50 (D.C.Cir.1987), cert. denied, U.S. , 108 S.Ct. 753 (1988), she must be an inferior officer.15 This is so because the Attorney General may constitutionally appoint only inferior officers, and, according to the independent counsel, the constitutional status of an officer cannot change merely because she is appointed by a special division of a court rather than the Attorney General. The independent counsel, however, ignores the factor in our prior opinion that was decisive to our determination that the independent counsel was “inferior.” His powers were conferred by regulation promulgated by the Attorney General and could be terminated by repeal of that regulation. Not only had the Attorney General appointed the independent counsel, he could, by revoking or modifying the regulation “at any time,” id. at 56, have modified the independent counsel‘s duties or terminated the office.16 Under such circumstances the independent counsel was, as were prior “independent” special prosecutors appointed by the Attorney General, clearly an inferior officer.17
But that is not this case—this independent counsel has refused to accept the Attorney General‘s appointment. She cannot now base an argument for constitutional inferiority on the Attorney General‘s appointment power that she has explicitly rejected. Nor, in our view, can she predicate the Attorney General‘s superior status, as she suggests, on the Attorney General‘s statutory removal power which she describes as “exclusive.” As we discuss later in our opinion, the Attorney General has essentially only the authority to petition the Special Court to authorize the removal of an independent counsel. The Attorney General therefore cannot be thought of as the independent counsel‘s constitutional superior. Under the statute, the Attorney General has the effective power neither to appoint her, to define, circumscribe, or supervise her duties, nor to remove her or terminate her office. We need not consider whether the Special Court, which has a good deal more authority under the statute vis-a-vis the independent counsel, is her constitutional superior since neither the independent counsel nor for that matter any amicus contends that the court fulfills that role.18
The independent counsel does, however, at least suggest that one can be an inferior officer within the meaning of the appointments clause without having any hierarchical superior. In Ex parte Siebold, 100 U.S. (10 Otto) 371 (1880); upon which the independent counsel relies for this proposition, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a statute giving the courts of law the responsibility for appointing election commissioners. Id. 100 U.S. at 379-82. The statute itself did not specify, as the independent counsel correctly maintains, who, if anyone, was the constitutional superior of the commissioners. That issue, however, was not discussed in the Court‘s opinion because it was not contended that the commissioners were principal officers. In truth, the duties of those election commissioners were relatively modest; they were charged with the observation of federal congressional elections and the reporting of improprieties to Congress—which, of course, has the constitutional responsibility to “[j]udge the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members.”
As the Court observed, the commissioners were not clearly within any of the three branches (which is in large part why the Court held their appointment by a court constitutional, see discussion infra pp. 493-94). They were certainly not, as is the independent counsel, an indisputable part of the Executive Branch. The commissioners seem to us actually to have been subordinates of Congress, but, in any event, since the issue was not even presented, the
In its opinion upholding the constitutionality of the independent counsel statute, the district court determined that the independent counsel was an inferior officer because “‘he is appointed for a single task to serve for a temporary limited period.‘” In re Sealed Case, 665 F.Supp. 56, 58 (D.D.C.1987) (quoting In re Olson, 818 F.2d 34, 44). The district court relied upon United States v. Eaton, 169 U.S. 331, 343 (1898), in which the Supreme Court stated that “[b]ecause the subordinate officer is charged with the performance of the duty of the superior for a limited time and under special and temporary conditions, he is not thereby transformed into the superior and permanent official.” In Eaton, the Supreme Court considered whether Congress had the “power to vest in the President [alone] the appointment of a subordinate officer called a vice-consul” who would temporarily carry out the duties of a consul. Id. The Court upheld this mode of appointment, because a contrary ruling would have voided any delegation of the duties of a superior officer to an inferior, no matter how minor or temporary the delegation might be. Id. Unlike the statute considered in Eaton, the Ethics in Government Act does not temporarily delegate the Attorney General‘s authority to investigate and prosecute criminal wrongdoing by high government officials to an inferior official. Instead, the Act removes that authority from the Attorney General altogether and places it entirely in the independent counsel. See
That the independent counsel‘s appointment expires when her task is completed seems to us irrelevant. Ambassadors are often appointed in accordance with the appointments clause for discrete negotiations and the Framers, experienced as they were with foreign affairs, contemplated just that eventuality.19 This independent counsel, moreover, not unlike others, has served for
Although it could well be argued that independent counsel, who often supervise more employees than cabinet departments once employed, are themselves “heads of departments,” it is also unnecessary for us to determine the reach of that phrase. Suffice it for the case for us to hold as we do that the independent counsel is not an inferior officer and thus falls at minimum within that category of the appointments clause of “all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for.” As such, her appointment is constitutionally invalid.20
III.
The Act‘s failure to comply with the appointments clause is sufficient to render it unconstitutional. We decide appellants’ other constitutional claims, however, so that if this decision is appealed, and the Supreme Court decides that these additional claims must be reached, it will not have to “either proceed without the usual benefit of a lower-court opinion or else delay final disposition by remanding for that purpose.” Synar v. United States, 626 F.Supp. 1374, 1383 (D.D.C.), aff‘d, 478 U.S. 714 (1986). The appellants claim, and we agree, that even if the independent counsel were an inferior officer, and so did not have to be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, the Act would violate the Constitution because it impermissibly interferes with the President‘s constitutional duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”
Authority to prosecute an individual is that government power which most threatens personal liberty, for a prosecutor “has the power to employ the full machinery of the state in scrutinizing any given individual. Even if a defendant is ultimately acquitted, forced immersion in criminal investigation and adjudication is a wrenching disruption of everyday life.” Young v. United States ex rel. Vuitton et Fils S.A., 481 U.S. 787, 107 S.Ct. 2124, 2141 (1987). The Framers of the Constitution were justly fearful of this power. They had recently witnessed the crime of sedition used as a tool of an oppressive government to retain power unjustly and to persecute its enemies, and English experience with the Star Chamber further shaped their views on criminal law and criminal process. See Ullmann v. United States, 350 U.S. 422, 427-28 (1956). Counsel for one appellant captured this
The Constitution therefore carefully distributes the various responsibilities for criminal prosecution among each of the three branches, so that citizens may not be endangered by one branch acting alone. Madison referred to the doctrine of separation of powers as an “essential precaution in favor of liberty,” THE FEDERALIST NO. 47, at 323 (J. Cooke ed. 1961), and it is part of “our basic constitutional doctrine that individual freedoms will best be preserved through a separation of powers and division of functions among the different branches and levels of Government.” United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297, 317 (1972). Federal criminal law can be enacted only by Congress. This innovation marks a major shift from prior practice, which countenanced a common law of crime created by the same judges who tried the cases. United States v. Hudson, 11 U.S. (7 Cranch) 32, 34 (1812). Congress’ role in the criminal law was carefully confined to this initial stage of law creation. Congress is, accordingly, explicitly forbidden to pass bills of attainder, one of the few positive prohibitions on congressional power contained in Article I. See United States v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437, 442 (1965) (“the Bill of Attainder Clause was intended not as a narrow, technical prohibition, but rather as an implementation of the separation of powers, a general safeguard against legislative exercise of the judicial function, or more simply—trial by legislature“). And the power of Congress to impeach officers of the United States is also limited—the penalty “shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States.”
Next the Constitution vests the power to initiate a criminal prosecution exclusively in the Executive Branch; this power is encompassed within the Executive‘s power to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” The Executive has “exclusive authority and absolute discretion to decide whether to prosecute a case.” United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 693 (1974); United States v. Cox, 342 F.2d 167, 171 (5th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, 381 U.S. 935 (1965). “The power to decide when to investigate, and when to prosecute, lies at the core of the Executive‘s duty to see to the faithful execution of the laws[.]” Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Pierce, 786 F.2d 1199, 1201 (D.C.Cir.1986).21
The Framers provided for a unitary executive to ensure that the branch wielding the power to enforce the law would be accountable to the people. “The idea of a ‘plural executive,’ or a President with a council of state, was considered and reject
That the government prove its case in a jury trial before a neutral and disinterested court, insulated with extraordinary tenure protection from the other two branches of government and shielded from popular pressure, is the final safeguard contained in the original Constitution upon the federal government‘s power to prosecute the criminal laws. See Commodity Futures Trading Comm‘n v. Schor, 478 U.S. 833 (1986). The constitutional scheme is as simple as it is complete—Congress passes the criminal law in the first instance, the President enforces the law, and individual cases are tried before a neutral judiciary involved in neither the creation nor the execution of that law. See Young v. United States ex rel. Vuitton et Fils S.A., 107 S.Ct. 2124, 2133-34 & n. 10 (1987). The Ethics in Government Act, it seems to us, deliberately departs from this framework in both its particular provisions and in its general purpose, which is to authorize an officer not accountable to any elected official to prosecute crimes. It may well be that the constitutional framework is awkward or burdensome in particular cases, but, under this system, efficiency is knowingly sacrificed in various ways so that liberty may be protected. Therefore, a law whose purpose is to ensure a more efficient or more trustworthy means for the state to prosecute crime than that contemplated by the Constitution comes into this court with a heavy burden. See Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U.S. 714 (1986). We begin by discussing the appointment, removal, and supervisory provisions of the Act separately. Each of these interferes with the President‘s performance of his duty to execute the laws. We then consider the combined impact of all of these sections of the statute on the President‘s constitutionally guaranteed executive powers.
A.
The Act directs that the independent counsel be appointed not by the President, nor by the Attorney General, but rather by a court of law. Even if we assume arguendo that the independent counsel is an inferior officer, her appointment appears quite inconsistent with the Constitution‘s placement of the executive
The vesting of the executive power in the President was essentially a grant of the power to execute the laws. But the President alone and unaided could not execute the laws. He must execute them by the assistance of subordinates.... As he is charged specifically to take care that they be faithfully executed, the reasonable implication, even in the absence of express words, was that as part of his executive power he should select those who were to act for him under his direction in the execution of the laws.
....
... Article II grants to the President the executive power of the Government, i.e., the general administrative control of those executing the laws, including the power of appointment and removal of executive officers—a conclusion confirmed by his obligation to take care that the laws be faithfully executed....
Id. at 135-36 (quoting Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52, 117, 163-64 (1926)). Indeed, even when the Supreme Court has upheld restrictions on the President‘s power to remove officers of the Executive Branch who performed “predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative” rather than executive duties, see, e.g., Humphrey‘s Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602, 624 (1935), the Court “carefully emphasized that although the members of such agencies were to be independent of the Executive in their day-to-day operations, the Executive was not excluded from selecting them.” Buckley, 424 U.S. at 133 (citation omitted).
The independent counsel nevertheless defends her appointment with the proposition that the “plain language” of the appointments clause allows Congress to vest the appointment of inferior officers, including the independent counsel, in a court of law, or in more general terms, that the appointments clause should be read to allow officers in one branch to appoint officers in another branch, i.e., to make “inter-branch” appointments. The relevant section of that clause, as we have discussed, is “Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.”
More recently, Judge Skelly Wright, dissenting in Hobson v. Hansen, 265 F.Supp. 902 (D.D.C.1967), squarely rejected—in our view correctly—the independent counsel‘s plain meaning argument:
[I]t is simply not true that Article II expresses any meaning quite so clear. Its language very naturally admits the common-sense reading that courts of law and the other listed offices were meant to appoint only those officers “inferior” to them.... And the narrower reading harmonizes with the most apparent purpose of Article II: to let Congress clothe Secretaries and courts with the necessary authority for filling vacancies in their own staffs.
Id. at 921 (Wright, J., dissenting) (emphasis added).24
Although we certainly sympathize with the notion of seeking the meaning of constitutional provisions first in textual language, we do not think this issue can possibly be resolved by invocation of the plain meaning rule. The clause, as we have observed, is certainly susceptible to at least two interpretations, and so we turn next to the available history of its adoption to gain insights into the Framers’ purpose. See Missouri Pac. Ry. v. Kansas, 248 U.S. 276, 280 (1919). The appointment provision itself represents a major change from the Articles of Confederation, which vested the appointment of officers in the Congress. And the records of the debates of the Convention evince serious discussion of the clause. For example, John Dickenson moved to allow Congress to vest the appointment of some officers in the “Legislatures or Executives of the several states.” 2 M. Farrand, supra note 11 at 406. This putative encroachment on the President‘s power was rejected. Subsequently, James Wilson had occasion to object to Senate participation in the appointment process, “as blending a branch of the Legislature with the Executive. Good laws are of no effect without a good Executive; and there can be no good Executive without a responsible appointment of officers to execute. Responsibility is in a manner destroyed by such an agency of the Senate.” Id. at 538-39. Gouverneur Morris responded that “as the President was to nominate, there would be responsibility, and as the Senate was to concur, there would be security.” Id. at 539. The tenor of the debate reveals a jealous guarding of the President‘s appointment power, even against any participation by the Senate, to the end that one man would be solely responsible for choosing government officers. It is true that more time was spent discussing judicial appointments (although much of that discussion was relevant to appointment power in general), but we take that as indication that the Convention was
Debate in the Convention on an earlier version of the appointments clause, which contained no reference at all to inferior officers, suggested that the delegates were concerned as to the practical difficulties of staffing a government of a nation whose distances were vast at a time when travel and communications were slow and often difficult. George Mason accordingly proposed that officers be appointed by a council rather than by the President with the approval of the Senate. Otherwise he worried that the Senate would have to be in continuous session in order to approve appointments. Rufus King responded, however, that “[h]e did not suppose it was meant that all the minute officers were to be appointed by the Senate, or any other original source, but by the higher officers of the departments to which they belong.” Id. at 539.
Later in the Convention, the inferior officer provision was added with little discussion and it appears therefore that the clause was designed to meet concerns expressed in the earlier dialogue between Mason and King. When the additional language was proposed, Madison observed that “[i]t does not go far enough if it be necessary at all—Superior Officers below Heads of Departments ought in some cases to have the appointment of the lesser offices.” Id. at 627.25 In other words, Madison, like King, thought the first part of the appointments clause, without the amendment, bestowed an implied power on principal officers to appoint officers subordinate to themselves—a power the amendment merely made explicit (but nonetheless in restricted form since it was given only to the President, courts of law, and department heads). The delegates to the Convention, we conclude, did not even contemplate
Turning from the debates of the Convention to the Federalist Papers (which are perhaps even more important as an interpretative aid because they, unlike the records of the Convention, were available to the state ratifying conventions), we note that Hamilton repeatedly and at some length discussed the immense importance of vesting the appointment power in the President. The purpose of these discussions is quite obscure if the only officers the President is constitutionally required to appoint are ambassadors, public ministers, and judges of the Supreme Court. See THE FEDERALIST NOS. 70, 76, 77 (A. Hamilton).
The dissent refers to an early version of the Judiciary Bill as an indication that some members of the First Congress thought judicial appointment of federal prosecutors constitutionally permissible. Dissent at 533 n. 41. We do not believe that one line from a precursor of a lengthy bill, subsequently modified to provide for presidential appointment of federal prosecutors, see Warren, New Light on the History of the Federal Judiciary Act of 1789, 37 HARV.L.REV. 49, 109 n. 137 (1923), is persuasive. Indeed, the change would seem more significant than the original language, especially since it may have been motivated by constitutional concerns. For as amicus curiae from the House of Representatives brought to our attention, the appointment provision was revised in response to a recommendation by Chancellor Robert Livingston that it would be “better that the Attorney General be appointed by the executive to which department he necessarily belongs than to the judicial with which the executive sh[ould] in no sort be confounded[.]” Letter from Robert Livingston to Oliver Ellsworth (June 26, 1789) (on file at Huntington Library, San Marino, California) (emphasis added).
The delegates’ discussion at the Convention, the Federalist Papers, and the action of the First Congress all then support an understanding of the appointments clause that would forbid judicial appointment of executive officers. The independent counsel argues that this common sense interpretation of the clause is foreclosed by Ex parte Siebold, 100 U.S. (10 Otto) 371 (1880), in which the Supreme Court upheld a statute that vested in the courts the appointment of election commissioners, thereby, according to the independent counsel, holding that Congress may generally vest the appointment of executive officers in the courts of law, rather than in the President or the department heads. See also Hobson v. Hansen, 265 F.Supp. 902, 912-13 (D.D.C.1967). In Siebold, however, the Court did not see the case before it as raising a question of congressional encroachment on the President‘s power to execute the laws. The statute involved in Siebold, unlike the independent counsel statute, did not prohibit the President from ordering his Attorney General to investigate election fraud.26 The Court framed the question in Siebold as implicating only the proper role of the judiciary, not the powers of the President; according to the Court, the issue was whether “the act of Congress imposes upon the Circuit Court duties not judicial, in requiring them to appoint the supervisors of elections.” 100 U.S. at 397.
It was not necessary, therefore, that the Court decide whether the appointment of election supervisors by a court deprived the executive of a power vested in it by the Constitution. Indeed, the law considered in Siebold was an exercise of congressional power under Article I,
Even were Siebold thought to bear more directly on the question whether officers belonging to one branch may appoint officers of another branch, it nevertheless does not support the independent counsel‘s position, because the Court did not hold that Congress may provide freely for such appointments. Rather, the Court examined the role of the election supervisors, which largely consisted in observing federal elections for Congress, and concluded that
in the present case there is no such incongruity in the duty required as to excuse the courts from its performance, or to render their acts void. It cannot be affirmed that the appointment of the officers in question could, with any greater propriety, and certainly not with equal regard to convenience, have been assigned to any other depositary of official power capable of exercising it. Neither the President, nor any head of department, could have been equally competent to the task.
Id. at 398 (emphasis added). The Court, in other words, could not readily determine to which branch the appointment most naturally belonged; the appointment seemingly could not have been made by any officer other than a judge “with any greater propriety.” This point alone distinguishes the election supervisors from typical executive officers. Ex parte Siebold therefore does not suggest that Congress may vest the appointment of a purely executive officer, such as the independent counsel, in a court of law.
What kind of appointments then would, by virtue of their “incongruity,” violate the appointments clause? We think it must be incongruous if an officer of one branch is authorized to appoint an officer of another branch who is assigned a duty central to the constitutional role of that other branch.28 The independent counsel‘s contention that she can be constitutionally appointed by a court necessarily suggests, as was extensively explored at oral argument in this and previous cases raising the same issue, the opposing general proposition that the appointments clause is no barrier to legislation authorizing inter-branch appointments.29 That is to say, a court could be empowered to appoint all officers subordinate to a department head. (For purpose of considering this issue, we have assumed that the independent counsel is an inferior officer and we will further assume that principal officers include department heads and judges.) If, for example, two-thirds of the House and Senate—a sufficient number to override a veto—disagreed strongly with the President‘s agricultural policy, Congress could place in a particular court, perceived as more in agreement with Congress’ policy views, the authority to appoint all Department of Agriculture officers subordinate to the Secretary. That device would neatly prevent the President from implementing his own agricultural policy. Or more shocking, be
Perhaps more plausible, however, is a scenario closer to the one presented by this case. Let us assume that Congress has lost confidence in the President‘s policy implicating only one subject matter within a department‘s jurisdiction—perhaps U.S. policy towards Latin America, or arms control negotiations, or the Executive Branch‘s presentation of cases to the Supreme Court. Under the independent counsel‘s view, Congress would face no constitutional impediment in requiring that a particular court appoint the officials responsible for implementing those policies. And as with the Act before us, Congress could forbid any other Executive Branch official to interfere with the special appointee‘s jurisdiction.31
Or reversing the inter-branch appointment device, Congress, if it had the constitutional authority the independent counsel asserts and was dissatisfied with the trend of federal judicial decisions, might place authority to appoint all inferior judicial officers including Justices’ and judges’ clerks in one department head (perhaps the Attorney General), thereby hoping to influence opinions or at least to obstruct the perceived undesirable trend.32
It seems obvious to us that all of these examples are so at odds with the doctrine of separation of powers or the President‘s unitary executive authority as to be plainly contrary to our Constitution. The independent counsel and various amici contend that it is unnecessary to consider these hypotheticals to hold the independent counsel‘s appointment constitutional, but we do not understand why that is so since the interpretation of the appointments clause offered by the independent counsel would flatly permit Congress’ authorization of inter-branch appointments. Of course most judges have a good deal more experience with criminal prosecution than with foreign affairs, so the independent counsel suggests that it is less incongruous for a court to appoint an independent counsel than, let us say, a diplomatic special envoy, but her position would, even if we could detect its principled limits, surely at least permit court appointment of all Justice Department lawyers—including the Solicitor General—who either appear before the federal courts or supervise those who do.33 And even that necessary extension of the independent counsel‘s argument seems so to burden her argument with blatant unconstitutional weight as to sink it.34
[t]he fact that we have come to regard criminal contempt as ‘a crime in the ordinary sense’ does not mean that any prosecution of contempt must now be considered an execution of the criminal law in which only the executive branch may engage.... [T]hese proceedings are not intended to punish conduct proscribed as harmful by the general criminal laws. Rather, they are designed to serve the limited purpose of vindicating the authority of the court.
Id. at 2133 (emphasis added) (citation omitted).
In sum, we think the Constitution generally precludes inter-branch appointments. For the reasons further elaborated in Parts IV and V of this opinion, moreover, court appointment of prosecutors presents a more fundamental incongruity with our constitutional scheme than virtually any other type of inter-branch appointment, because it blurs that cherished separation of prosecutor and judge which is a crucial aspect of the Constitution‘s protection of individual liberty.
B.
The Act further trenches on the concept of a unitary executive and departs from separation of powers doctrine by substantially limiting the President‘s ability to remove or supervise the independent counsel.35 It provides that an independent counsel “may be removed from office, other than by impeachment and conviction, only by the personal action of the Attorney General and only for good cause, physical disability, mental incapacity, or any other condition that substantially impairs the performance of such independent counsel‘s duties.”
Power to remove an executive officer is important principally because it permits the President to control the performance of that officer. See Synar v. United States, 626 F.Supp. 1374, 1400 (D.D.C. 1986). Even more than the appointment power perhaps, authority to remove an officer who strays from the President‘s desired policy direction guarantees the President the ability to channel that officer‘s course of action. As Madison said in the First Congress:
If the President should possess alone the power of removal from office, those who are employed in the execution of the law will be in their proper situation, and the chain of dependence be preserved; the lowest officers, the middle grade, and the highest, will depend, as they ought, on the President, and the President on the community.
1 ANNALS OF CONG. 499 (J. Gales ed. 1789); see also Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52, 47 S.Ct. 21, 71 L.Ed. 160 (1926).
The Constitution, to be sure, does not require that every officer of the United States be removable at the will of the President. The civil service laws, designed to abolish the spoils system--to have merit rather than politics govern the appointment and tenure of civil servants--restrict the President‘s removal power. See Myers, 272 U.S. at 174, 47 S.Ct. at 44. Politics, however, is in one sense policy, and civil servants are not thought to be the President‘s policymakers. Rather, they take direction in their discretionary duties from the political appointees of the President who help the President fashion and execute his policies. See Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 367, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 2686, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976) (plurality) (“Limiting patronage dismissals to policymaking positions is sufficient to [implement policies of new administration]. Nonpolicymaking individuals usually have only limited responsibility and are therefore not in a position to thwart the goals of the in-party.“). Members of the civil service enjoy protection against removal largely because of their limited role. See Gifford, The Separation of Powers Doctrine and the Regulatory Agencies After Bowsher v. Synar, 55 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 441, 467 (1987) (“As room for policy formulation increases, congressional limitations upon presidential influence become problematic.“).
In Humphrey‘s Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602, 55 S.Ct. 869, 79 L.Ed. 1611 (1935), the Supreme Court recognized another limitation on presidential removal power. Humphrey‘s Executor corrected the suggestion found in Myers that every officer appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate must be freely removable by the President. The Court recognized that “it is within the power of Congress under the ‘Necessary and Proper’ Clause, Art. I, § 8, to vest authority that falls within the Court‘s definition of executive power in officers who are not subject to removal at will by the President and are therefore not under the President‘s direct control.” Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U.S. 714, 106 S.Ct. 3181, 3206, 92 L.Ed.2d 583 (1986) (White, J., dissenting) (discussing Humphrey‘s Executor).
Humphrey‘s Executor, however, has not been read to validate every removal restriction. See Morgan v. Tennessee Valley Auth., 115 F.2d 990 (6th Cir. 1940), cert. denied, 312 U.S. 701, 61 S.Ct. 806, 85 L.Ed. 1135 (1941). The Humphrey‘s Executor Court itself was careful to limit its holding to officials who had “quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial” powers, leaving the decision in Myers intact insofar as it related solely to “purely executive officers.” Humphrey‘s Executor, 295 U.S. at 629, 632, 55
Although Myers and Humphrey‘s Executor both concerned officers who were appointed by the President, whereas the independent counsel was appointed by the Special Court, we think the Supreme Court‘s analysis of the President‘s removal power in both cases applies to an officer who, like the independent counsel, is charged with an indisputably executive function. The independent counsel argues that because she is an inferior officer not appointed by the President, Congress may restrict her removal under the reasoning of United States v. Perkins, 116 U.S. 483, 6 S.Ct. 449, 29 L.Ed. 700 (1886). Perkins was a suit by a Navy cadet-engineer to recover pay accruing after he was discharged by the Secretary of the Navy in contravention of a law forbidding discharges in peacetime except by court-martial. The Supreme Court adopted the language of the Court of Claims, which said that “[w]e have no doubt that when Congress, by law, vests the appointment of inferior officers in the heads of departments it may limit and restrict the power of removal as it deems best for the public interest.” Id. at 485, 6 S.Ct. at 450. Although appointed by a court rather than a department head, the independent counsel maintains the same reasoning applies to her. An officer‘s removal may be restricted, we are told, if the officer was not appointed by the President in the first place. But it cannot be that a restriction on the power of the President to remove an officer appointed by him, a restriction that under Myers unconstitutionally interferes with the President‘s duty to oversee the execution of the law, becomes constitutional if the power of appointment as well is removed from the President and all other members of the Executive Branch. Depriving the Executive Branch of appointment power increases rather than decreases the Act‘s interference with the President‘s prerogatives. Accordingly, in Humphrey‘s Executor, the Court treated the President‘s power to appoint the FTC Commissioners as a factor to be weighed against the argument that a restriction on removal encroached upon the President‘s executive authority. The Federal Trade Commission was meant by Congress to “be independent of executive authority except in its selection.” 295 U.S. at 625, 55 S.Ct. at 872 (emphasis in original). This point
To be sure, Supreme Court Justices have expressed dissatisfaction with the distinctions drawn in Humphrey‘s Executor. See, e.g., Bowsher v. Synar, 106 S.Ct. at 3207 n. 3 (White, J., dissenting); FTC v. Ruberoid Co., 343 U.S. 470, 487-88, 72 S.Ct. 800, 810, 96 L.Ed. 1081 (1952) (Jackson, J., dissenting). They contend, not without force, that the FTC Commissioners’ duties included law enforcement responsibilities and so Humphrey‘s Executor‘s reliance on the Commissioners’ quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative functions is inadequate to explain the case--and to limit its future applicability.
Even under this alternative reading, which recognizes certain executive functions performed by the FTC, Humphrey‘s Executor cannot, it seems to us, sanction the Act‘s good cause removal limitation. In Humphrey‘s Executor, the Commissioners were described as a “body of experts” whose purpose was “to carry into effect legislative policies embodied in the statute in accordance with the legislative standard therein prescribed, and to perform other specified duties as a legislative or as a judicial aid.” 295 U.S. at 625, 628, 55 S.Ct. at 872, 874. An important part of the Commissioner‘s role was to flesh out the very general legislative standard contained in the FTC Act. The Federal Trade Commission therefore was part and parcel of the very statute it was assigned to enforce--it actually created the law of fair trade in the course of adjudicatory enforcement proceedings.39 “If all [the FTC] has to do is to order the literal statute faithfully executed, it would exercise a function confided exclusively to the President and would be subject to his control,” FTC v. Ruberoid Co., 343 U.S. 470, 488, 72 S.Ct. 800, 810, 96 L.Ed. 1081 (1952) (Jackson, J., dissenting). According to that view then, the Federal Trade Commission Act did not divest the President of his constitutional duty to oversee the execution of the law because “any such duty [was] necessarily limited to a great extent by the content of the laws enacted by the Congress,” Bowsher, 106 S.Ct. at 3207 (White, J., dissenting), and part of the “content” of the fair trade law is the Commission itself. That analysis simply does not apply to the Ethics in Government Act because this statute entrusts enforcement of a pre-existing body of criminal law to an official neither appointed nor removable by any member of the Executive Branch. What is more, the independent counsel has no legislative or judicial role regarding the United States criminal code; her only responsibility is to execute it, and that is a responsibility the Constitution assigns unequivocally to the Executive Branch. Cf. Commodity Futures Trading Comm‘n v. Schor, 478 U.S. 833, 106 S.Ct. 3245, 92 L.Ed.2d 675 (1986);
No party or amicus before this court denies that the independent counsel is a “pure” executive officer. The issue is, in any event, foreclosed by Bowsher, in which the Court said “[i]nterpreting a law enacted by Congress to implement the legislative mandate is the very essence of ‘execution’ of the law” and the exercise of judgment “concerning facts that affect the application of the [law]” is another characteristic of the executive function. 106 S.Ct. at 3192. The independent counsel is a fortiori an executive officer under this definition. She must determine whether the facts uncovered in her investigation may constitute illegal conduct; in order to make this judgment, she must “interpret[] a law enacted by Congress.” Those legal interpretations and law enforcement functions exercised by the independent counsel carry more--much more--executive discretion than the specific duties of the Comptroller General involved in Bowsher; no one asserts that her duties--as was claimed of those of the Comptroller General--are “essentially ministerial and mechanical.” Id.; see Wayte v. United States, 470 U.S. 598, 607, 105 S.Ct. 1524, 1530, 84 L.Ed.2d 547 (1985).
Although he has frequently dissented from cases overturning laws on separation of powers grounds and has advocated a pragmatic view of the separation of powers doctrine, Justice White has repeatedly stressed the core executive nature of the prosecutorial function and the consequent importance of ensuring that the President retain the power to remove core executive officers at will. See, e.g., Bowsher, 106 S.Ct. at 3207 (White, J., dissenting) (“[T]here are undoubtedly executive functions that, regardless of the enactments of Congress, must be performed by officers subject to removal at will by the President.“); INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 1002, 103 S.Ct. 2764, 2810, 77 L.Ed.2d 317 (1983) (White, J., dissenting) (“A legislative check on an inherently executive function, for example, that of initiating prosecutions, poses an entirely different question.“); Buckley, 424 U.S. at 285, 96 S.Ct. at 758 (White, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (“I would be much more concerned if Congress purported to usurp the functions of law enforcement....“).
Like Justice White, we cannot see how prosecution of federal criminal law can be other than an inherent, or core, executive function. It was suggested at oral argument, however, that because the Constitution does not mandate the creation of lower federal courts, but leaves that decision to the discretion of Congress, it was not inevitable that there would even be federal prosecutors, much less that the prosecutorial function was placed in the Executive Branch. But the Framers did foresee that the new government they were establishing would sometimes need to enforce its laws through criminal prosecutions. They actually provided in important detail for the procedure to be used in such cases--the Constitution directs that all federal criminal trials shall be by jury and “shall be held in the State where the said Crimes have been committed.”
We think it inevitable that under the Constitution such officers must be members of the Executive Branch subject to the control of the President. In contrast to the limited grants of legislative power made in Article I, Article II grants authority to the President in broad terms: “[T]he executive Power shall be vested in a President,”
2.
Even if a simple “good cause” restriction on the President or his subordinate‘s removal power over the independent counsel were constitutional, this statute, prior to its recent amendment, restricted Executive Branch authority a good deal more than the normal “good cause” limitation.41 Its delegation to the Special Court to “review” the Attorney General‘s dismissal of the independent counsel so diminished the Attorney General‘s removal authority as to render it almost illusory. Any review, regardless of scope, might be problematic because the court which reviewed the dismissal is the very court that appointed the independent counsel and for that reason, of course, “might well be expected to view [her] as its protege.” In re Sealed Case, 829 F.2d at 65 (Williams, J., concurring and dissenting).
The scope of review, however, is quite extraordinary--given the probable nature
Nothing in the Act, moreover, indicates that the Special Court‘s “review” is restricted to the record before the Attorney General at the time of the removal decision; indeed, since such a decision would typically be made for policy reasons, and not because some fact appears in a hypothetical record, review of the record seems anomalous in this context. At oral argument, counsel for the independent counsel suggested that an evidentiary record might be created before the court itself in a civil action brought by a discharged independent counsel,
This scheme is analytically indistinguishable from one whereby the Attorney General could remove the independent counsel only by petitioning the Special Court for a termination order which the Special Court could grant or not following its own independent investigation of the facts and the law. The only difference between such a hypothetical statute and the Act is the timing of the Special Court‘s “review,” but the Special Court‘s power to appoint an interim independent counsel while it reviews a dismissal renders the matter of timing inconsequential. See
3.
The “good cause” limitation on removal, coupled with the Act‘s extraordinary judicial review provisions and the power of the Special Court to appoint an interim independent counsel and to reinstate a fired independent counsel compromise the President‘s ability to oversee the execution of the law. Not content with eliminating the President‘s implicit power to direct or influence the independent counsel, Congress went even further to render the President impotent to affect the independent counsel‘s behavior. From the moment an independent counsel is appointed, the Act, which guarantees the independent counsel “independent authority” to carry out her duties,
The independent counsel is free to ignore Department of Justice policy if it is “not possible” to follow it, and that judgment is for her alone to make.
As we further discuss in Part V, important decisions about the scope of the investigation and the very identity of the targets are made not by the Attorney General, but by the Special Court. The absence of Executive Branch supervisory authority is perhaps most troubling when an investigation veers toward matters affecting international relations and the independent counsel adopts positions at odds with the remainder of the Executive Branch. For example, in another investigation under the Ethics in Government Act that has previously been before this court, the independent counsel attempted to subpoena the Canadian Ambassador in the face of strenuous opposition by the Department of State on this delicate diplomatic question. See United States v. Deaver, No. 87-096 (D.D.C. June 22, 1987) [Available on WESTLAW, 1987 WL 13365]. And in oral argument before this court regarding still another independent counsel investigation, we were advised that in the event of a dispute between the independent counsel and the President over foreign policy and its implications for a prosecution, the independent counsel would “in principle” prevail over the President.
In sum, Congress has created an Executive Branch office to perform a core presidential function and as far as we can determine precluded the President from exercising any influence over the performance of that office even when its performance might interfere with a range of other Executive Branch responsibilities, including those national security duties directly and solemnly entrusted to the President for the protection of all Americans.
C.
We have, up to this point, considered the Act‘s provisions individually, examining in turn the appointment, removal, and supervisory sections of the Act. We believe each of these provisions to be a departure from the related doctrines of separation of powers and of a unitary executive, but we acknowledge that this area of the law is
Yet, in the end, even if some executive officers may constitutionally be appointed by judges, or may constitutionally be insulated to some extent from removal and supervision by the President, we think it tenuous to claim that any officer may be entrusted with all the powers of the Attorney General,45 indeed of the President, and charged with the exclusive enforcement of the criminal law as applied to specific individuals. Cf. Commodity Futures Trading Comm‘n v. Schor, 478 U.S. 833, 106 S.Ct. 3245, 3260, 92 L.Ed.2d 675 (1986), (Court regarded as key to its separation of powers analysis whether or not Congress had entirely withdrawn a function from the cognizance of the branch to which it is constitutionally assigned, id. 106 S.Ct. at 3260, and whether the body to which some part of one branch‘s responsibility has been assigned can exercise substantially all of the powers of that branch, id. at 3258). We are, as we have concluded, concerned with one of the President‘s core executive functions, explicitly provided in the Constitution, that he take care that the laws be faithfully executed. The Act considered as a whole thus strikes us as a serious encroachment on the President‘s executive authority, and we turn now to consider whether this encroachment can be justified.
IV.
The primary defense of the constitutionality of the Act presented by the independent counsel and supporting amici is one of necessity. We are told that Presidents can no longer be trusted to ensure that their senior appointees obey the criminal laws. The independent counsel claims that “the constitutional crisis which grew out of Watergate is a sufficient demonstration that without a mechanism to achieve this goal, there is grave question whether we are in fact ‘a Nation capable of governing itself effectively,‘” (quoting Buckley, 424 U.S. at 121, 96 S.Ct. at 683). This argument is sometimes cast in terms of an institutional lack of confidence in the Justice Department:
[F]ifty years of the nation‘s history involving the Teapot Dome, Truman Administration, and Watergate scandals, has demonstrated a generally recognized inability of the Department of Justice and the Attorney General to function impartially with full public confidence in investigating criminal wrongdoing of high-ranking government officials of the same political party.
The President then has a range of choices and techniques to ensure that corruption at senior levels in his administration is deterred and, if not deterred, punished. Clearly this statute is based on the premise that the President himself cannot be trusted to choose wisely among these options. Or that even if he could, the institutional conflict of interests in which he is placed is so intolerable as to suggest the need after two hundred years for a novel government agency that removes the appearances of conflict. But it is by no means clear to us that this ostensible problem is truly a conflict of interest. We had not previously thought that the obligation upon any executive--let us say the President of a corporation or a Union--to ensure probity among his subordinates presents a conflict of interest as we judges and lawyers think of the meaning of that phrase. It is surely never easy to effect the removal or prosecution of trusted subordinates; in human terms alone the discomfort can be intense. But that discomfort is hardly a conflict of interest. Otherwise, the independent counsel device would seem to be needed as an attachment to all bureaucratic institutions in our society.
It is suggested, however, that the conflict of interest is a political one. The President would be reluctant to see his Justice Department proceed against senior administrative appointees because his relationship with these officials involves more than mere ties of personal loyalty--such as could be found in any bureaucratic institution--it comprehends political allegiances and therefore such a prosecution may politically damage the President himself. Hence the President cannot be trusted to make decisions regarding matters that may threaten the political goodwill he has accumulated in his public life and upon which he depends for his continued success. As a principle to justify the use of congressional power to deprive the President of prosecuting authority, however, this contains no feasible limitation. Why could Congress not, according to this notion, require an independent counsel whenever the target of inquiry were a political ally of the President: Senator, Congressman, Governor, campaign contributor, or in fact any person active in affairs of the President‘s party? Nor do we see, if political allegiance really does generate a conflict of interest, why the argument cannot just as easily be made also to support the opposite application--that the President be deprived of authority to prosecute his political adversaries. If we follow this political conflict of interest reasoning to its logical end, it points to the desirability of removing the Department of Justice entirely from presidential influence--which we think must be a constitutional reductio ad absurdum.47
The Framers were not oblivious to the concerns that gave rise to this legislation. By providing Congress with the impeachment power, and declining to extend the President‘s pardon power to cases of impeachment, the Constitution grants to Congress the power, if needed because of criminal behavior, to discipline the President and all of his appointees. The impeachment clause and the limitation on the President‘s pardon power not only demonstrate that the Framers did not ignore the problem of wrongdoing in high places; these provisions further suggest that the balance between the need for official accountability for criminal acts and the prerogative of the President to oversee the execution of the laws was struck in the Constitution itself. Although the power to impeach has been used only sparingly, it has been explicitly directed against two Presidents. More importantly, however, it hangs over the Executive Branch as a brooding omnipresence, often forcing Presidents to take action that they might wish to avoid. After President Nixon caused one special prosecutor to be discharged the resulting uproar--and the explicit threats of impeachment--compelled him almost at once to acquiesce in the appointment of another, who was given full authority to pursue criminal charges against the President himself.
As did the Supreme Court in Myers, 272 U.S. at 164-67, 175, 47 S.Ct. at 41-42, 45, we note that the legislation before us was passed in the midst of a period when one political party tended to control the Presidency and the other enjoyed dominance in the Legislative Branch. It is of course conceivable, without in the slightest degree impugning congressional motives, that this long-standing political division has subtly contributed to the inevitable tension between the political branches and thus perhaps played a role in the perceived need for this legislation. Ironically, however, the impeachment power is a good deal more credible threat when Congress is controlled by one party and the Presidency by the other. Certainly history bears out that observation. That means the Act may well have been passed at a time in American history when its need, even assuming the validity of its defenders’ positions, was least.
The dissent ostensibly does not accept the independent counsel‘s necessity argument. Dissent at 528 n. 28. Our colleague suggests rather that since the Watergate abuses amounted to an effort by the President to alter the balance of power between the Presidency on the one hand and Congress and the Judiciary on the other, Congress is entitled to respond. The dissent does not explain in what manner these abuses “threatened the balance among the three branches of government,” Dissent at 527, but, in any event, we would have thought the denouement of the Watergate affair hardly suggests the triumph of the Presidency over the other two branches. Furthermore, to say, as does the dissent, that the Act is constitutional since “no man can be a prosecutor or judge in his own case” and the Act merely “maintain[s] the executive‘s proper--and properly circumscribed--constitutional role,” id. at 527, is either to accept the necessity argument or to assume the conclusion in this case.
Even were we persuaded that the legislation‘s “necessity” were great, however, we could not approve such a fundamental revision to our constitutional scheme. Congress itself seems to have been implicitly aware that the Act was designed to correct what it thought was a constitutional defect.
The choices we discern as having been made in the Constitutional Convention impose burdens on governmental processes that often seem clumsy, inefficient, even unworkable, but those hard choices were consciously made by men who had lived under a form of government that permitted arbitrary governmental acts to go unchecked. There is no support in the Constitution or decisions of this Court for the proposition that the cumbersomeness and delays often encountered in complying with explicit constitutional standards may be avoided, either by the Congress or by the President. With all the obvious flaws of delay, untidiness, and potential for abuse, we have not yet found a better way to preserve freedom than by making the exercise of power subject to the carefully crafted restraints spelled out in the Constitution.
Congressional desire for more effective administration of the criminal law when high governmental officials are implicated cannot justify departure from a constitutional plan carefully calibrated to balance the need for law enforcement against concerns for individual liberty.
Next, the independent counsel suggests that this statute, unlike the statutes considered in Chadha and Bowsher, even if it encroaches upon executive authority, should be sustained because it does not explicitly add to Congress’ powers. That portion of Executive Branch authority that is removed from presidential control does not, it is argued, directly enhance congressional authority. It is quite true that the Framers seemed most troubled by the prospect of a too powerful Congress. “[T]he debates of the Constitutional Convention, and the Federalist Papers, are replete with expressions of fear that the Legislative Branch of the National Government will aggrandize itself at the expense of the other two branches.” Bowsher, 106 S.Ct. at 3189. And it is also true that Congress’ role under the Act is limited to a non-binding call for the appointment of an independent counsel and the right to receive reports from that office. As has been previously suggested, however, “[u]nhitching the Independent Counsel from the executive may make the office naturally prone to domination by the branch that represents
But whether or not Congress can actually exercise subtle influence over, or give implicit direction to, an independent counsel, it seems simplistic to contend that Congress’ political power in our system is unaffected by a diminution (or increase) in the Chief Executive‘s authority. If the President‘s authority is diminished--and we think it utterly impossible to deny that the Act accomplishes at least that result--Congress’ political power must necessarily increase vis-a-vis the President. In practical terms, repeated calls for the appointment of a statutory independent counsel may, like a flicking left jab, confound the Executive Branch in dealing with Congress. An actual appointment, furthermore, surely saps the political vitality of the Presidency and thereby renders the President a less effective political force juxtaposed against Congress. In this very case, congressional calls for appointment of an independent counsel to investigate Executive Branch withholding of documents--based on executive privilege--seem to have been only a part of a broader, and not atypical, struggle between the political branches over the expenditures of appropriated funds in the shadow of an impending election. Of course those demands could occur in the absence of the statute, but the Act, by imposing a legal obligation (even if unreviewable by the courts, see Banzhaf v. Smith, 737 F.2d 1167 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (en banc) (per curiam)) upon the Attorney General to seek an independent counsel if certain rather minimal conditions are met, surely alters the political equation.
Be that as it may, whether the effect of the Act is to transfer power to Congress is not determinative as to its constitutionality. The dissent, relying on Commodity Futures Trading Comm‘n v. Schor, 478 U.S. 833, 106 S.Ct. 3245, 92 L.Ed.2d 675 (1986), contends that a “more fluid, functional approach” rather than a formalistic analysis is called for if--as is claimed is true here--a statute siphons off from one branch but does not transfer to another. We have difficulty understanding why that principle, even if correct, would apply to this case, since, as we show, many of the Executive Branch functions have been quite explicitly transferred to the Special Court--a part of the Judicial Branch. But, in any event, we think the dissent overreads Schor. There the Court upheld a statutory scheme whereby a litigant before an independent adjudicatory agency, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC“), could bring a state common law counterclaim in a reparation proceeding pursuant to the Commodity Exchange Act. Prior opinions regarded adjudication of state common law claims as more obviously implicating Article III jurisdiction than did the adjudication of “public rights” claims. See Northern Pipeline Constr. Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U.S. 50, 67-70, 102 S.Ct. 2858, 2869-71, 73 L.Ed.2d 598 (1982). The Court in Schor allowed what perhaps had been thought to be exclusively Article III cases to be tried in the first instance before the administrative agency at the option of both parties. The judiciary, however, did not thereby give up any real power or prerogative; CFTC orders may only be enforced by a federal district court, where they are subject to a non-deferential standard of review (which is another way of describing supervision). That is why the Court thought the magnitude of any intrusion on the Judicial Branch “de minimis.” Schor, 106 S.Ct. at 3260. In sharp contrast, the Ethics in Government Act‘s purpose and effect are to deprive the President of any supervisory role over the independent counsel.
We think Young v. United States ex rel. Vuitton et Fils S.A., 481 U.S. 787, 107 S.Ct. 2124, 95 L.Ed.2d 740 (1987)--upon which, paradoxically, the independent counsel relies--is more revealing as to how the Supreme Court treats a significant threat to a branch‘s power. As we have discussed, see supra pp. 495-96, the Court there concluded that judicial authority to initiate contempt proceedings was an inherent judicial prerogative, else “the judicial power of the United States would be a mere mockery.” Id. 107 S.Ct. at 2131. If denying the judiciary‘s authority to initiate
Finally, we are told by the independent counsel and supporting amici that only a small fraction of the President‘s authority is taken from him by the Act. We have had, however, and indeed now have, a considerable number of these independent counsel employing what appear to be sizeable staffs. We are not at all confident therefore that we could measure, if we thought it decisive, just how much presidential authority in terms of the number of investigations, actual or potential, is at stake in this case. We think the question irrelevant, however, because the independent counsel‘s argument ignores the primary purpose of the Constitution‘s deliberate separation of powers. It is not the quantity of cases or investigations withdrawn from executive supervision that is important, for a qualitatively significant encroachment upon the executive‘s control over even a single case may have a drastic impact on the individual involved. The constitutional doctrines implicated by this case do not concern merely questions of governmental organization and structure, but rather involve checks and balances that were designed “to protect the people from the improvident exercise of power.” Chadha, 462 U.S. at 957, 103 S.Ct. at 2787. Separation of powers was considered by the Framers to be an “essential precaution in favor of liberty.” THE FEDERALIST No. 47 at 323 (J. Madison) (J. Cooke ed. 1961). “The Framers recognized that, in the long term, structural protections against abuse of power were critical to preserving liberty.” Bowsher, 106 S.Ct. at 3191. That theme is repeated in Schor, where the Court, focusing on Article III, recognized that an independent judiciary serves both institutional and personal interests, but the latter is the more important. Schor, 106 S.Ct. at 3256. Personal interests were not infringed by the statute upheld there because not a single litigant was obliged to have his common law claim adjudicated by the CFTC--the scheme was purely voluntary. One of appellant‘s counsel well expressed the essence of this concept: “If you look from the top down, as opposed to the bottom up, the chief defense of the statute of the independent counsel is it is only a little bit of executive power that is being taken away. If you look from the bottom up, from the accused person up ..., all that accused person‘s protection that he was getting through three separate branches is taken away....”
That very independence from presidential and Justice Department supervision and guidance that Congress deliberately fashioned for independent counsel has troubling consequences for those who find themselves the target of the independent counsel‘s attention. A person occupying this statutory office has, it seems to us, unique incentives to seek an indictment.50 Our concern is based on the self-evident proposition that the whole raison d‘etre of the independent counsel is not to administer the criminal law across a wide population, but rather to focus on one individual or group of individuals targeted at the inception of the office. In effect, an entire self-sufficient government agency is created from scratch to investigate and perhaps prosecute a single individual. The need to justify even the expense of an office dedicated solely to one goal must generate a reluctance to decide against indictment or to conclude the investigation absent near certainty that no indictment is possible or that no further leads remain.
These incentives to prosecute might be thought also to affect a special prosecutor appointed by the Attorney General or the President. But, under the Act the independent counsel enjoys statutory immunity from supervision by anyone else in the Executive Branch and thus, unlike a special prosecutor appointed by the Attorney General and subject to his potential supervision, is free to ignore considerations normally included within the rubric of prosecutorial discretion and which may in a particular case all point to restraint. We have already mentioned powerful executive policy concerns, such as the foreign relations of the United States, that quite legitimately could influence the executive not to seek an indictment in a given case. More fundamental, perhaps, the independent counsel has no need to view a particular case in relation to similar cases, past or future. Wise exercise of prosecutorial discretion is dependent in part upon access to officials who are participants in the ongoing process of enforcing the law and who are able to take a longer view of an individual case. Yet the independent counsel is cut off from the accumulated lore and wisdom of career Department of Justice officers, who are in a unique position to evaluate “[s]uch factors as the strength of the case, the prosecution‘s general deterrence value, the Government‘s enforcement priorities, and the case‘s relationship to the Government‘s overall enforcement plan.” Wayte, 470 U.S. at 607, 105 S.Ct. at 1530. These factors will often counsel against prosecution; a case that seems strong and important when viewed in isolation may look weak or trivial when measured against past cases or in relation to broader considerations of sound deployment of prosecutorial resources.52
An independent counsel is not required to follow Department of Justice policies, and so, on her own and unsupervised, decides matters as sensitive as what level of confidence in the prosecutor‘s mind regarding the target‘s guilt is sufficient before an indictment may properly be sought. Lawrence Walsh, the independent counsel in the Iran/Contra investigation, for example, has suggested that if he finds probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed, he has a duty to prosecute.53 Probable cause is that low standard of confidence thought sufficient to support the issuance of a search warrant or an arrest warrant. The standard governing United States Attorneys’ prosecutorial determinations, on the other hand, is much higher--it is the policy of the Department of Justice that as a matter of “fundamental fairness” an indictment should not be sought unless the prosecutor believes that an unbiased jury would convict, a standard which provides far greater protection than probable cause against the possibility that the target of an investigation will be unnecessarily subjected to a lengthy and expensive ordeal. U.S. Attorneys’ Manual § 9-27.220 (June 15, 1984). Perhaps a less stringent standard may be justified in particular cir-
*
We therefore conclude that the Act viewed as a whole, taking into account its appointment, removal, and supervisory provisions, so deeply invades the President‘s executive prerogatives and responsibilities and so jeopardizes individual liberty as to be unconstitutional.
V.
The last basis upon which the Act is challenged is that it invests an Article III court with non-Article III powers. The constitutional principle of separation of powers may be violated in either of two ways. “One branch may interfere impermissibly with the other‘s performance of its constitutionally assigned function. Or, the
principle is alternatively violated when one branch assumes a function that more properly is entrusted to another.” Chadha, 462 U.S. at 963, 103 S.Ct. at 2790 (Powell, J., concurring in judgment) (citations omitted). By removing a core executive officer from the control of the Executive Branch, the Act, as we have concluded, interferes with the executive‘s “performance of its constitutionally assigned function.” Considered from a different viewpoint, though, the Act violates the separation of powers doctrine because it entrusts a court with an executive function, which a court may not constitutionally undertake. These defects are reciprocal in nature; the Act impermissibly takes a central responsibility from the Executive Branch in violation of Article II, and it impermissibly gives that executive responsibility to the Judicial Branch, thereby violating Article III. The latter defect would not appear if, for example, the Act placed the responsibility to supervise the independent counsel in the Speaker of the House of Representatives, although such a statute would have constitutional problems of its own. See Bowsher, 106 S.Ct. 3181.
Article III of the Constitution limits the judicial power of the United States to “Cases” and “Controversies.” Federal courts therefore must “carefully abstain from exercising any power that is not strictly judicial in its character, and which is not clearly confided to [them] by the Constitution.” Muskrat v. United States, 219 U.S. 346, 355, 31 S.Ct. 250, 253, 55 L.Ed. 246 (1911) (citation omitted). The “case or controversy” limit “defines the
Granted, the appointments clause of Article II bestows upon the judiciary unquestioned authority that it might not otherwise enjoy, given the circumscribed nature of Article III, to appoint, pursuant to appropriate legislation, at least those who support judges in the exercise of their Article III functions--clerks, secretaries, magistrates, and the like. It seems obvious to us, however, that this clause cannot be construed so as to undermine or nullify Article III limitations.
The Special Court under the Act not only appoints the independent counsel, it defines the jurisdiction of the independent counsel, it receives reports from the independent counsel, and it is authorized to terminate the office of the independent counsel “on its own motion ... on the ground that the investigation of all matters within the prosecutorial jurisdiction of the independent counsel ... have been completed or so substantially completed that it would be appropriate for the Department of Justice to complete such investigations and prosecutions.”
In Hobson v. Hansen, 265 F.Supp. 902 (1967), a special three judge federal district court considered a constitutional challenge to a law providing that members of the District of Columbia school board be appointed by United States district court judges sitting in the District of Columbia. Although its decision upholding the law, as we have noted, rested on a more narrow ground, the court did proceed to discuss the appointments clause of Article II, finding in it an additional grant of authority to courts to make appointments. The court, however, carefully distinguished power to appoint an executive officer from power to undertake other administrative duties relating to that officer‘s performance: “Were the judges authorized to administer the schools, even though our District Court is an Article I as well as an Article III court, there would have been ‘such incongruity in the duty required as to excuse the courts from its performance or to render their acts void.‘” Id. at 913 n. 14 (quoting Ex parte Siebold, 100 U.S. at 398). The distinction found in Hobson v. Hansen between the power to appoint and the power to administer is an obvious one.56 Appointment is a one time only task, and does not require the appointing body to supervise or otherwise become entangled in the activities of the appointed official. So, even if under the authority of the appointments clause of Article II a court may constitutionally appoint an executive officer, when an Article III court is called upon to supervise and administer the executive office, constitutional bounds are transgressed. See Buckley, 424 U.S. at 123, 96 S.Ct. at 684; United States v. Ferreira, 54 U.S. (13 How.) 40, 14 L.Ed. 42 (1852); Hayburn‘s Case, 2 U.S. (2 Dall.) 409, 1 L.Ed. 436 (1792).
Under the Act, once the Attorney General applies to the Special Court for appointment of an independent counsel, the Special
While the Attorney General has, as a matter of practice, included as part of the application for the appointment of the independent counsel a statement of suggested jurisdiction, the Act does not mandate that he do so; it requires only that the Attorney General provide “sufficient information to assist the division of the court to select an independent counsel and to define that independent counsel‘s prosecutorial jurisdiction.“.
Definition of a prosecutor‘s jurisdiction is, of course, crucial to the whole enterprise of executing the criminal law, for in practical terms, it determines who may be sub-
That is not all. When independent counsel have become concerned about whether the federal conflict-of-interest laws apply to them, they have approached a member of the Special Court in his chambers and sought his advice on this issue.59 In response, the Special Court has issued “orders” that purport to exempt the independent counsel and the staff of the independent counsel from conflict-of-interest laws.60 And in another case, the Special Court ordered an independent counsel to delay an investigation of certain allegations until completion of related state criminal proceedings. H.R. CONF. REP. NO. 452, 100th Cong., 1st Sess. at 26 (1987). Again, it is important to note that such orders were not given in the context of a case or controversy; no notice was given to interested parties and no hearing was held or briefs filed. It seems more than a bit artificial to place the issuance of such orders into the category of accepted judicial duties. For all effects and purposes these were instructions given by a superior to an executive officer under his supervision, a task which Article III does not contemplate as judicial.
Finally, we turn to the Special Court‘s “removal” power. In Bowsher v. Synar, the Supreme Court struck down a law that vested executive power in an officer who was removable by a joint resolution of Congress. Discussing the relationship between the power to remove and the power to control, the Court said:
To permit the execution of the laws to be vested in an officer answerable only to Congress would, in practical terms, reserve in Congress control over the execution of the laws.... “Once an officer is appointed, it is only the authority that can remove him, and not the authority that appointed him, that he must fear and, in the performance of his functions, obey.”
106 S.Ct. at 3188 (quoting Synar v. United States, 626 F.Supp. at 1401). Potential for control is not, as we saw in Bowsher, contingent on removal power that is direct and unlimited. Congress’ power to remove the Comptroller General, from which the Su-
Here the Special Court (consisting not of 100 Senators and 455 House members but only three judges) may in effect abolish the office of the independent counsel whenever two of the judges believe her investigation no longer serves a useful purpose.
As all who have borne the responsibility of criminal investigation well know, there is no such thing as a perfect investigation. More leads can always be pursued, more facts can always be discovered, more witnesses can always be interviewed; therefore, a wise determination that an investigation should end is a subtle one often requiring as much self-confidence and courage as close legal analysis. That responsibility, like the initiation of an investigation through appointment of the independent counsel and the definition of its scope (jurisdiction), is the very essence of prosecutorial discretion. These powers and responsibilities are here all combined in the Special Court, whose exercise of them is, moreover, unreviewable.61 In Bowsher, the President at least retained the appointment power and some check, through the veto power, on removal. And, it will be recalled, removal of the Comptroller General was arguably subject to judicial review. See Bowsher, 106 S.Ct. at 3190.
The independent counsel‘s contention that all these duties are not dissimilar to the responsibilities of an Article III court when it is obliged to find probable cause before issuing a search warrant or when it rules on matters concerning grand juries is wholly unpersuasive. The Bill of Rights refers to both search warrants and grand juries, and since the earliest days of the Republic it has been assumed that judges may play a role in each. See generally Brown v. United States, 359 U.S. 41, 49-52, 79 S.Ct. 539, 545-47, 3 L.Ed.2d 609 (1959). Indeed, since the grand jury referred to in the Fifth Amendment is the grand jury as it existed at common law, and since that grand jury was traditionally overseen by a judge, it is fair to conclude that the Constitution implicitly requires that judges assume the role they do in a grand jury proceeding. That includes summoning witnesses to attend and give testimony, as well as using the court‘s contempt power to punish recalcitrant witnesses. Id. But even if this were not so, the authority that the Special Court exercises over the independent counsel, particularly with respect to the scope of the indepen-
Similar arguments are made in the amicus brief from the United States House of Representatives, which asserts that since a prosecutor is an officer of the court who works in and about the courts and who is subject to court rulings and instructions there can be no impropriety in the Special Court‘s appointment and supervision of the independent counsel. This argument has previously been squarely rejected by this court. In Newman v. United States, 382 F.2d 479, 481 (D.C.Cir.1967) (emphasis added), then-Judge Burger said of the United States Attorney:
He is at once an officer of the court and the agent and attorney for a client; in the first capacity he is responsible to the Court for the manner of his conduct of a case, i.e., his demeanor, deportment and ethical conduct; but in his second capacity, as agent and attorney for the Executive, he is responsible to his principal and the courts have no power over the exercise of his discretion or his motives as they relate to the execution of his duty....
Intimate involvement of an
The Act‘s inattention to
they work is sufficiently free of interference to enable them to administer the law honorably and efficiently. Litigants and our citizenry in general must also be satisfied.” In re Application of President‘s Comm‘n on Organized Crime, 763 F.2d 1191, 1197-98 (11th Cir.1985) (quoting Hobson v. Hansen, 265 F.Supp. at 931 (Wright, J., dissenting)). The Act, then, is constitutionally defective not only because it gives courts powers beyond what
* * * * * *
At the very core of this constitutional dispute lies the dual meaning of the word “politics.” The Act‘s independent counsel provisions are designed in significant part to remove the influence of partisan politics from those prosecutorial decisions perceived as most vulnerable to partisan considerations. No one as a matter of principle can disagree with this general objective, whether as applied to those covered by the Act or, for that matter, as applied to all Americans subject to criminal and civil law. Politics however, as we and the Supreme Court have emphasized, also refers to quite legitimate governmental policy determinations—in this case Executive Branch policy determinations. Unfortunately, it is impossible through the device Congress chose to excise the former without encroaching upon the latter.
Mindful as we are of the distinguished array of legal talent and institutional authority asserting the constitutionality of the Ethics in Government Act, we come only soberly and not easily to our conclusion that the Act is unconstitutional. We have grappled with issues that we full well recognize divide the nation politically (using the word in the partisan sense), and federal judges—properly removed from
RUTH BADER GINSBURG, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
The core of the constitutional issues presented in these consolidated cases is whether the independent counsel provisions of the
Appellants advance two less encompassing constitutional claims: that the Act contravenes the
Finally, appellant Olson advances a statutory claim: that the Special Division incorrectly defined independent counsel‘s jurisdiction to include possible conspiracy charges against Olson in the absence of a specific request to that effect by the Attorney General. For the reasons set forth in part IV., I conclude that Olson‘s statutory claim is not ripe for this court‘s review.
Accordingly, I would hold the Ethics Act constitutional and affirm the judgments of the district court.
I.
Appellants’ separation of powers contentions build from the characterization of prosecution as an executive function; they advance three variants of the charge that the Act encroaches on this executive domain. One group of arguments clusters around the concept of aggrandizing one branch at the expense of another. A second avenue of challenge focuses on limitation; displacement of the constitutionally-assigned functions of one branch may undermine the structure of separated and balanced powers even absent an impermissible transfer or sharing of functions. Finally, appellants argue that the Act places impermissible constraints on the President‘s power to remove independent counsel. For the reasons stated below, none of these separation of powers challenges should succeed.
A.
Appellants allege that the Act grants both the legislative and judicial branches impermissible roles in the conduct of prosecutions. They assert that the Act allows Congress to exert undue influence on law enforcement decisionmaking. Appellants also argue that the Act effectively transfers supervision of the prosecutorial function to the Special Division. Neither contention withstands scrutiny.
In Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U.S. 714, 106 S.Ct. 3181, 92 L.Ed.2d 583 (1986), the Supreme Court set forth the separation of powers analysis applicable to the question whether one branch has intruded impermissibly on the domain of another. The Court held that it is a violation of the “doctrine of separation of powers,” id., 106 S.Ct. at 3184, for Congress to charge the Comptroller General with the performance of executive functions, and at the same time to retain for itself the power to remove him.
The first step of the Bowsher analysis is unproblematic in this case. No participant in the litigation questions that prosecution is properly typed an executive branch function.1 See, e.g., United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 693, 94 S.Ct. 3090, 3100, 41 L.Ed.2d 1039 (1974) (“the Executive Branch has exclusive authority and absolute discretion to decide whether to prosecute a case“); Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Pierce, 786 F.2d 1199, 1201 (D.C.Cir.1986); United States v. Cox, 342 F.2d 167, 171 (5th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, 381 U.S. 935, 85 S.Ct. 1767, 14 L.Ed.2d 700 (1965).
The second Bowsher question, whether the Act cedes control over prosecution to Congress or to the judiciary, requires more extended consideration.
Section 595(e) allows members of the Committee on the Judiciary of either House of Congress to request that the Attorney General apply for the appointment of an independent counsel.2 The same section requires the Attorney General to respond to such a request, either by notifying the committee that he has made the requested application, or by stating why he decided not to apply. Appellants argue that this provision results in improper congressional influence on the process of prosecutorial decisionmaking. The objection is insubstantial.
Section 595(e) contains no language suggestive of an intent to give Congress the power to compel the Attorney General to apply for appointment of an independent counsel. The sole apparent purpose of the provision is accountability.3 The Attorney General has discretion to decide whether to seek appointment of an independent counsel; if the decision is in the negative, he is not required to explain that decision in any detail.4 This limited duty to give a reason
for his decision is no more intrusive of executive branch prerogatives than the investigation challenged and upheld in McGrain v. Daugherty, 273 U.S. 135, 47 S.Ct. 319, 71 L.Ed. 580 (1927). There the Supreme Court, though not addressing the separation of powers question directly, upheld a Senate select committee‘s subpoena directing the brother of a former Attorney General to testify before it. The subject of the committee investigation was
the administration of the Department of Justice—whether its functions were being properly discharged or were being neglected or misdirected, and particularly whether the Attorney General and his assistants were performing or neglecting their duties in respect of the institution and prosecution of proceedings to punish crimes and enforce appropriate remedies against the wrongdoers—specific instances of alleged neglect being recited. Id. at 177, 47 S.Ct. at 46.
It must be inferred that in the Court‘s view prosecutorial decisions were not to be kept in splendid isolation from congressional oversight.
Turning from legislative oversight to third branch participation, appellants contend that the several duties assigned to the Special Division under the Act render it, in effect, independent counsel‘s supervisor. In fact, the court‘s role is more administrative than supervisory.5
The Special Division cannot initiate an investigation or prosecution.
The Special Division has no supervisory role during independent counsel‘s tenure.6 Should the Attorney General elect to remove an independent counsel pursuant to
Upon completion of an investigation and/or prosecution, independent counsel must file a comprehensive report with the court.
The court‘s responsibility for selection of an individual to fill the independent counsel role does not, by itself, constitute an intrusion into the prosecutorial function. Courts frequently choose individuals to fill
The Act does not on its face require that the court‘s definition of independent counsel‘s jurisdiction track the Attorney General‘s application.9 It cannot, however, be read to grant the Special Division unfettered discretion in this regard. Such a reading would be inconsistent with the preconditions of the court‘s jurisdiction-defining role: that the Attorney General conduct a preliminary investigation,
The prosecutorial jurisdiction can only be properly defined if the Attorney General provides complete and detailed information to the court about the true nature of the allegations of criminal wrongdoing, any related criminal investigation which are [sic] presently being conducted by the Department, and any information or leads collected as a result of the preliminary investigation which would indicate the potential that further investigation will involve additional related matters. S.REP. NO. 170, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. 56 (1977), reprinted in 1978 U.S.CODE CONG. & ADMIN.NEWS 4216, 4272.
Congress gave the Special Division no anchor for its jurisdictional delineations other than the Attorney General‘s findings and recommendations; one cannot reasonably ascribe to the legislature a will to allow the Special Division to stride past the markers of the only investigation it has at hand. Since courts must interpret statutes in such a way as to give effect to all of their provisions, see Weinberger v. Hynson, Westcott & Dunning, 412 U.S. 609, 633, 93 S.Ct. 2469, 2485, 37 L.Ed.2d 207 (1973),10 the Act must be read to require the court‘s jurisdictional specification to be substantially as requested by the Attorney General.11 The essential decision whether to proceed in a given direction toward potential prosecution, then, rests with the Attorney General, not the Special Division.
The termination provisions likewise present no problem of impermissible intrusion. The report submitted under
that any reporting requirement might create a degree of subservience on the part of the reporting officer, that effect is minimized here by the prior definition of independent counsel‘s jurisdiction. Any prosecutorial activity within the jurisdictional confines ultimately traceable to the Attorney General is insulated from the Division‘s scrutiny. Any decision by the Division to terminate an office of independent counsel, whether on its own motion or at the suggestion of the Attorney General, is similarly constrained by the jurisdictional grant.13
Time and statutory clarification have overtaken a further argument appellants put forward. They read former § 596(a)(3) as establishing a “judicial veto” over the Attorney General‘s decision to remove an independent counsel for cause because the section said the Special Division could order relief if the removal “was based on error of law or fact.” See Brief of Appellants, Nos. 87-5261, 87-5265 (Appellants’ Br. II) at 38-39.14 This appellants took to mean that the Special Division was empowered to engage in de novo review, thus construing the congressional product to provoke, not avoid, a constitutional controversy. Cf. supra p. 521 note 10. But Congress has clarified that it never intended application of any extraordinary or intense judicial review standard:
the sentence which establishes the [“error of law or fact“] standard for courts to apply in reviewing the removal of an independent counsel from office. This standard was included when the statute was originally enacted as a reflection of existing law regarding officials subject to removal only for good cause. However, the conferees want to avoid any possibility that it would be viewed as having established a different standard. The intent of the statute as originally enacted, and as reauthorized, is that the courts should apply the standards established by existing case law on the removal of such officials. Independent Counsel Reauthorization Act of 1987, H.R.CONF. REP. NO. 452, 100th Cong., 1st Sess. 37 (1987).15
The majority finds a similarity between the Special Division‘s power to terminate an office of independent counsel on its own motion and the removal provision at issue in Bowsher. Maj. Op. at 514-15. However, the legislative history of the Act makes it clear that the termination provision was intended to serve only as a measure of last resort, one to arrest a “runaway” independent counsel:
This paragraph provides for the unlikely situation where a special prosecutor may try to remain as special prosecutor after his responsibilities under this chapter are completed.... The drastic remedy of terminating the office of special prosecutor without the consent of the special prosecutor should obviously be exercised with caution. S.REP. NO. 170, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. 75 (1977), reprinted in 1978 U.S.CODE CONG. & ADMIN.NEWS 4216, 4291.
To summarize, taken as a whole, the Special Division‘s role is more administrative than supervisory. The Division‘s discretion is constrained at every juncture by the original grant of jurisdiction, itself defined in response to the Attorney General‘s application for independent counsel. The Division holds no control rein over the exercise of the independent counsel‘s prosecutorial discretion. Thus, there is no transfer of the prosecutorial function to the judicial branch of government.16
This is not to deny that the Act imposes limits on the executive. It calls upon the Attorney General to apply for independent counsel if his preliminary investigation,
Appellants charge that, even absent a transfer of functions, independent counsel‘s independent exercise of prosecutorial responsibilities itself constitutes an unconstitutional inroad into executive branch territory. Such an incursion, they argue, impairs the executive‘s ability to fulfill the obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” which in turn threatens the constitutionally-created balance among the three branches of the federal government.19
In Commodity Futures Trading Comm‘n v. Schor, supra, announced the same day as Bowsher, the Supreme Court articulated a separation of powers analysis applicable where there is encroachment on—or siphoning off from—one branch but no transfer of function to another. The Schor approach, I believe, cannot be written off as good for one day and case alone. In Schor the Court considered a statutory scheme which allowed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to adjudicate garden variety state common law counterclaims interposed in reparation proceedings. That arrangement, the Court held, did not impermissibly diminish the domain of
Unlike Bowsher, this case raises no question of the aggrandizement of congressional power at the expense of a coordinate branch. Instead, the separation of powers question presented in this case is whether Congress impermissibly undermined, without appreciable expansion of its own power, the role of the Judicial Branch. Id., 106 S.Ct. at 3261.
The Court‘s discrete separation of powers analyses in Bowsher and Schor should guide our way in this case. Where one branch appropriates the functions of another the separation of powers issue arises most pointedly. In these cases a straightforward, “formalistic” analysis is indeed the order of the day. See also Immigration & Naturalization Serv. v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 103 S.Ct. 2764, 77 L.Ed.2d 317 (1983). But a measure such as the one before us presents a more subtle problem. The danger of creating an imbalance among the three branches by taking some business away from one of them is in all cases a vital concern, but the actual effects of each apparent limitation should be examined with care. A more fluid, functional approach is appropriate if we are to preserve the full range of structural values encompassed under the heading of separation of powers.
Schor‘s separation of powers analysis turns on the nature and extent of the intrusion, or siphoning off, and the purpose it is designed to serve:
Among the factors upon which we have focused are the extent to which the “essential attributes of judicial power” are reserved to Article III courts, and, conversely, the extent to which the non-Article III forum exercises the range of jurisdiction and powers normally vested only inArticle III courts, the origins and importance of the right to be adjudicated, and the concerns that drove Congress to depart from the requirements ofArticle III . Id., 106 S.Ct. at 3258.
In the context of removing certain matters from the executive, rather than judicial, branch,20 Schor‘s approach counsels a consideration of three factors: the extent of the removal, whether the limitation affects a core executive function, and the purposes of the legislation.
The Ethics Act effects only a limited incursion into executive territory. The Attorney General makes two important decisions at the outset: whether there is sufficient information to conduct a preliminary investigation and, after undertaking such an investigation, whether there are reasonable grounds to believe further investigation or prosecution warranted.
In this regard the present case is more like Schor than Northern Pipeline Constr. Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U.S. 50 (1982), in which a large delegation of judicial powers to bankruptcy judges was held to violate
The scheme validated in Schor, on the other hand, vested less encompassing authority in the Commission to hear claims that would otherwise be heard in the first instance in court, and the powers of the Commission are more limited than were those of the bankruptcy courts. “[T]he CFTC, unlike the bankruptcy courts under the 1978 Act, does not exercise ‘all ordinary powers of district courts,’ and thus may not, for instance, preside over jury trials or issue writs of habeas corpus.” Schor, 106 S.Ct. at 3259.
Under the Ethics Act the independent counsel‘s assignment is channeled: she is able to pursue only matters falling within the jurisdictional grant; she may not take on, in addition, new matters merely because they are “related to” the assignment she has been given. See In re Olson, 818 F.2d 34 (D.C.Cir.Indep.Couns.Div.1987). In this respect, her office cannot be compared with the sprawling commission of the bankruptcy courts examined in Northern Pipeline. On the other hand, independent counsel does enjoy, for the particular matter she has been empowered to investigate, virtually “the full authority of the Attorney General.” Appellants’ Br. II at 14-17. Balancing the two factors—a circumscribed mission, but a full arsenal to accomplish that mission—and taking into account the Attorney General‘s role in applying, or choosing not to apply, for appointment of independent counsel, I conclude that the Ethics Act effects no intolerably sweeping displacement of executive branch authority.22
Appellants contend that the Act tampers with a “core” executive function—prosecution.23 Though it is indisputably an executive task, see United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. at 693, 94 S.Ct. at 3100, it is not obvious that prosecution is at the “core” of the executive branch‘s constitutionally-assigned functions, in the sense that the job must be kept, in any and all cases, under the President‘s wing and cover.
Core executive functions are described in
Though in pertinent respects analogous to the measure challenged in Schor, the Ethics in Government Act serves a significantly different legislative goal. The purpose of the Commodity Exchange Act relevant in the Schor case was to “create an inexpensive and expeditious alternative forum,” 106 S.Ct. at 3260, an objective Congress embraced without adverting to structural considerations. Thus the Court was obliged to evaluate the extent of the conflict between the congressional objective—making available for adjudication of a common law counterclaim a forum more convenient, cheaper, and swifter than an
The framers constructed a government of separated powers with the purpose of “diffusing] power the better to secure liberty.” Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 635, 72 S.Ct. 863, 870, 96 L.Ed. 1153 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring). “The accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands [is] the very definition of tyranny.” THE FEDERALIST No. 47, at 324 (J. Madison) (J. Cooke ed. 1961). The chosen structure, however, was decidedly not one of absolute separation. See United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. at 707, 94 S.Ct. 3107; Nixon v. Administrator of GSA, 433 U.S. 425, 442-43, 97 S.Ct. 2777, 2789-90, 53 L.Ed.2d 867 (1977); see also supra note 18. The allocation of legislative, executive, and judicial functions among the three branches was accompanied by a system of checks and balances, so that no branch could use isolation as an instrument of domination. Implementation of the principle of separated powers must look to both features of the constitutional scheme.25
The Ethics Act is designed to function as a control against abuse of executive branch power. It implements the checking aspect of the separated powers. The independent counsel provisions of the Act were developed in response to the Watergate era abuses of executive branch powers, abuses which themselves threatened the balance among the three branches of government. The Act is rooted in the principle that “no man can be a prosecutor or judge in his own case.” S.REP. NO. 170, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. 5 (1977), reprinted in 1978 U.S.CODE CONG. & ADMIN.NEWS 4216, 4221.26 It is similarly unreasonable to expect an individual to investigate or prosecute his superiors:
The pressures, the tensions of divided loyalty are too much for any man, and as honorable and conscientious as any individual might be, the public could never feel entirely easy about the vigor and thoroughness with which the investigation was pursued. Some outside person is absolutely essential. Removing Politics from the Administration of Justice: Hearings on S. 2803 and S. 2978 Before the Subcomm. on Separation of Powers of the Senate Comm. on the Judiciary, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. 200 (1974) (testimony of Archibald Cox, Watergate Special Prosecutor).
The Act thus operates as a means of maintaining the executive‘s proper—and properly circumscribed—constitutional role.27 The Act‘s purpose must be
The Schor Court validated an encroachment on judicial branch authority. It characterized the incursion as “limited,” 106 S.Ct. at 3260, albeit trenching on a core function—the adjudication in the first and only trial instance of traditional state common law contract claims. “The counterclaim asserted in this case is a ‘private’ right for which state law provides the rule of decision. It is therefore a claim of the kind assumed to be at the ‘core’ of matters normally reserved to
C.
Section 596(a)(1) permits removal of independent counsel “only by the personal action of the Attorney General,” and only for “good cause” or a physical, mental, or other condition that “substantially impairs the performance” of her duties.29 Appellants contend that restrictions on the President‘s30 power of removal encroach on the exclusively executive domain of prosecutorial discretion. The executive‘s ability to fulfill the constitutional command faithfully to execute the laws, they argue, requires unrestricted authority to remove officers charged with executive duties.
The Supreme Court has provided some guidance on the question of congressionally-imposed limits on the removal of executive officers. In Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52, 47 S.Ct. 21, 71 L.Ed. 160 (1926), the Court held unconstitutional a statute which required Senate advice and consent to the President‘s removal of a postmaster first class, reasoning that “the power of removal of executive officers by the President alone was essential in the division of powers between the executive and the legislative branch.” Id. at 167, 47 S.Ct. at 42. Myers’ sweeping language
The Court focused on the latter factor in Wiener v. United States, 357 U.S. 349, 78 S.Ct. 1275, 2 L.Ed.2d 1377 (1958). It held that War Claims Commissioners, who were appointed for fixed terms, were not subject to removal at the President‘s pleasure, even though Congress had been silent on the question of removal. The Court read the crucial distinction to be that between officers “who are part of the Executive establishment and those whose tasks require absolute freedom from Executive interference,” id. at 353, 78 S.Ct. at 1278; removal powers as to the latter could be restricted. Finally, the Court recently invalidated a statute granting Congress an active role in the removal of the Comptroller General, an officer found to be performing executive functions. Bowsher v. Synar, supra.
The holdings of these four cases point to one crucial distinction, between congressional participation in the removal process and congressionally-imposed limits on a power of removal which remains in the executive branch.32 Congressional participation in removal, not an issue in this case, uniformly has been disapproved. Myers, supra; Bowsher, supra. The more difficult question concerns how to define the class of officers whose removal may be subject to restrictions.33 Humphrey‘s Executor and Wiener may be read two ways. Appellants contend that neither case involved officers performing “purely executive” functions; such officers must serve at the President‘s will. Appellee counters that it was the need for freedom from executive interference that was decisive in those two cases.
Appellants’ reading—that Congress never may restrict the executive‘s power to remove “purely executive” officers—places too much weight on the characterization of an officer‘s function. Like the Comptroller General, FTC Commissioners are charged with responsibility for interpreting and applying acts of Congress, yet implementation of legislative policy was characterized as “quasi-legislative” in Humphrey‘s Executor, 295 U.S. at 628, 55 S.Ct. at 874, “executive” in Bowsher, 106 S.Ct. at 3192. The constitutionality of statutory restrictions on the removal power cannot depend on such a problematic question of characterization.34
There can be no doubt that limiting the President‘s power to remove independent counsel is essential to the instant legislative scheme. An unrestricted removal power would create a “here and now subservience” that would thwart the goal of independence. Thus the removal restrictions of
II.
Appellants advance two challenges to the Act under the
Appellants argue that the class of officers who must be appointed by the President, on advice and consent of the Senate, cannot be limited to those specifically mentioned in Article II, § 2. They maintain that officers who exercise significant authority and discretion, Appellants’ Br. II at 21, fit within that category. Appellants concede, however, that neither the Appointments Clause itself nor contemporaneous commentary speaks plainly to the classification question. “In the practical course of the government there does not seem to have been any exact line drawn, who are and who are not to be deemed inferior officers, in the sense of the Constitution, whose appointment does not necessarily require the concurrence of the Senate.” 2 J. STORY, COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION § 1536 (5th ed. 1891).36 Appellants thus urge this
The majority has responded to appellants’ plea and has reached out to supply a definition of an inferior officer: one who is subordinate to a principal officer. Maj. Op. at 484. The majority does not, however, identify the authority for this interpretation. That is not surprising. The only recorded exchange over the prescription “but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments” is this:
Mr. Madison. It does not go far enough if it be necessary at all—Superior Officers below Heads of Departments ought in some cases to have the appointment of the lesser offices.
Mr. Govr Morris There is no necessity. Blank commissions can be sent—
2 RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787, at 627 (September 15) (M. Farrand ed. 1911). Madison thus suggested that the clause on which this case first turns for my colleagues was of no great moment in the framers’ debate, and indeed is not self-defining. Significantly, Madison called “Superior” an officer my colleagues would no doubt dub “inferior“—someone below a department head and thus subordinate.
What can one make of the various appellations to which the framers made reference—“inferior,” “Superior,” “lesser,” “principal“? Only this, I believe. One cannot place too much stock in “original intent” as it applies to the appointment of nonjudicial officers other than those specifically enumerated in the Appointments Clause. And surely one cannot rest one‘s decision in this grand constitutional controversy on contemporary definitions of modifying terms the founding fathers failed to pin down.
Appellee points out that this court recently validated the Attorney General‘s appointment, within the Department of Justice, of an independent counsel charged with exactly the duties and responsibilities enjoyed by independent counsel under the Act. In re Sealed Case, 829 F.2d 50 (D.C.Cir.1987), cert. denied, North v. Walsh, 484 U.S. 1027, 108 S.Ct. 753, 98 L.Ed.2d 765 (1988). Independent counsel therefore must be an inferior officer, she argues, because the Attorney General may not constitutionally appoint any other kind of officer. The majority counters that the Attorney General‘s power to rescind the regulation pursuant to which a Justice Department “independent” counsel is appointed renders such officers subordinate and hence inferior. Maj. Op. at 484-85. The majority‘s response begs the question. Were the nature and scope of an officer‘s duties—rather than the majority‘s “subordinate” construct—the determining factor, independent counsel would have to be counted an inferior officer, for the reason appellee advances.
Appellee also emphasizes Ex Parte Siebold, 100 U.S. (10 Otto) 371, 25 L.Ed. 717 (1880), in which the Supreme Court upheld a statute assigning courts the responsibility for appointing certain election commissioners, who therefore must be inferior officers. These commissioners had no superiors. The ground on which the majority distinguishes Siebold is not entirely clear. The opinion first suggests that the election commissioners’ responsibilities were more limited than those of independent counsel, Maj. Op. at 485, but goes on to hint that it is in some way significant that the commissioners, unlike independent counsel, “were not clearly within any of the three branches.” Id. at 486.
In short, the majority cannot sustain its own argument that subordinacy alone determines whether an officer is inferior or
Congress has the authority to create both categories of offices—those the President must fill with the Senate‘s concurrence and “inferior” ones. Thus the present question is not one of pure or abstract categorization; rather, it concerns the legitimacy of a classification made by Congress pursuant to its constitutionally-assigned role in vesting appointment authority. That constitutional assignment to Congress counsels judicial deference. The chosen mode of appointment here indicates that Congress meant to create an inferior office. That intention alone is not dispositive of the constitutional issue, for it is common ground that Congress does not have the “final say.” See Maj. Op. at 487 n. 20. But judicial review must fit the occasion. Where, as in the matter at hand, the label that better fits an officer is fairly debatable, the fully rational congressional determination surely merits more tolerance than my colleagues accord it. The arguments advanced by appellants and by the majority, that independent counsel ought to be considered an officer similar in stature to heads of departments, in sum, are insufficiently compelling to justify upsetting Congress’ considered judgment on the matter. I conclude that independent counsel is an inferior officer within the meaning of the Appointments Clause.
Appellants contend that even if independent counsel is an inferior officer, she cannot constitutionally be appointed by a court. The exceptions clause, all participants in this case agree, admits of more than one interpretation. Appellants argue that the clause must be read to permit the vesting of the power to appoint inferior officers only within the branch, or the department, in which they are to serve. Appellee argues that there is no express constitutional limitation; Congress may vest the appointment of any inferior officer in the President, the courts, or department heads.
In Ex Parte Siebold, supra, the Supreme Court adopted an interpretation of the exceptions clause similar to that advanced by
An inter-branch appointment would indeed fail the test of congruity if it violated the separation of powers doctrine. The majority argues that assigning to one branch the appointment of an officer whose duties are central to the role of a different branch would violate the separation of powers and thus would be incongruous. Maj. Op. at 494.40 I am in accord with my colleagues as to the principle, but do not agree with their application of it in this concrete case. Vesting the appointment of independent counsel in the Special Division is not incongruous because, as set forth at I.A. and I.B., supra, the Ethics Act neither unduly displaces executive branch prerogatives, nor transfers supervision of the prosecutorial function to the judiciary.41
Appointment of independent counsel by a court meets the test of statutory congruity as well. It would be incongruous in the extreme, given the purposes of the Act, to vest appointment of independent counsel in the President, and the same would be true of heads of departments, themselves serving at the President‘s pleasure. The Ethics Act was designed in part to serve as an assurance that high executive officials would not receive especially favorable
III.
The Ethics in Government Act violates
Appellee argues, in my view correctly, that the Appointments Clause authorizes the selection of independent counsel by a court. See supra pp. 532-34.
Appellants maintain that the power to define independent counsel‘s jurisdiction “compels the Division to make substantive law enforcement decisions.” Appellant‘s Br. I at 40. In fact, the Special Division merely assigns independent counsel an area of responsibility, closely tailored, as noted supra p. 521, to the Attorney General‘s application. It would be impossible for the Division to appoint independent counsel without in some manner defining—and restricting—the scope of her authority.45 When an appointment is made to a preexisting office, the title of the office may be all that is needed to define the duties of the new appointee. But where a statute provides for ad hoc appointments, such that the office itself must be defined at the time of appointment, the power to define is a necessary incident of the power to appoint.46
Appellants also contend that the Special Division‘s resolution of independent counsel‘s application for referral of certain allegations against appellants Dinkins and Schmults constitutes a supervisory function violative of
The essence of appellants’ complaint, and of the majority‘s response to it, is that the Special Division‘s authority to resolve such questions as an application for expanded jurisdiction renders it independent counsel‘s de facto supervisor.47 That charge is more properly understood as a separation of powers claim, and was addressed as such supra at I.A. Nothing in the Act, however, prevents the Special Division from handling those jurisdictional issues assigned to it in a manner consistent with
IV.
Appellant Olson advances a statutory claim: that the Special Division could not, consistently with the Act, define independent counsel‘s jurisdiction to include investigation of possible conspiracy charges against Olson.
Independent counsel Morrison applied to the Special Division for jurisdiction to investigate allegations against two additional Department of Justice officials, urging in part that “the known facts raise a reasonable suspicion that Olson, Schmults, and Dinkins may have acted together....” Reply to Department of Justice Response to Independent Counsel‘s Application for Referral of Related Matters Pursuant to
I find Olson‘s claim premature. In Deaver v. Seymour, 822 F.2d 66 (D.C.Cir.1987), this court held unripe a preindictment challenge to the constitutionality of the Ethics Act, citing the policy against preindictment challenges to “defects in the institution of the prosecution.” Id. at 70. In In re Sealed Case, 829 F.2d 50 (D.C.Cir.1987), cert. denied, 108 S.Ct. 753, 98 L.Ed.2d 765 (1988), we held unripe Oliver North‘s similar constitutional claim, given the valid parallel appointment of independent counsel by the Attorney General, because “any harm to North that is a sufficiently direct and immediate consequence of the Ethics Act must involve an investigative or prosecutorial activity that Walsh would not undertake if he depended for his authority solely upon the Attorney General‘s regulation.” Id. at 61. Analogously, Olson‘s statutory claim can be deemed ripe only if he can show that the contempt order on appeal here, or the underlying subpoena, would not have issued but for the court‘s having included conspiracy allegations in its interpretation of the jurisdictional grant. No such showing—or allegation—has been made. I therefore decline to reach the merits of Olson‘s statutory claim.
The Ethics in Government Act is a carefully considered congressional journey into the sometimes arcane realm of the separation of powers doctrine, more particularly, into areas the framers left undefined. The Act is designed to prevent Congress’ own appropriation of the functions it insulates from executive supervision, and it implements a fundamental control essential to our Constitution‘s doctrine of separated powers: the control of mutual checks. It is a measure faithful to the eighteenth century blueprint, yet fitting for our time. I find the Ethics Act constitutional, and would affirm the judgments of the district court.
Notes
A majority of majority party members or a majority of all nonmajority party members of the Committee on the Judiciary of either House of the Congress may request in writing that the Attorney General apply for the appointment of [an] independent counsel. Not later than thirty days after the receipt of such a request, or not later than fifteen days after the completion of a preliminary investigation of the matter with respect to which the request is made, whichever is later, the Attorney General shall provide written notification of any action the Attorney General has taken in response to such request and, if no application has been made to the division of the court, why such application was not made. Such written notification shall be provided to the committee on which the persons making the request serve, and shall not be revealed to any third party, except that the committee may, either on its own initiative or upon the request of the Attorney General, make public such portion or portions of such notification as will not in the committee‘s judgment prejudice the rights of any individual.
The district court for a district in which the office of United States attorney is vacant may appoint a United States attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled. The order of appointment by the court shall be filed with the clerk of the court.
Any application under this chapter shall contain sufficient information to assist the division of the court to select [an] independent counsel and to define that independent counsel‘s prosecutorial jurisdiction.
(1) In addition to any reports made under subsection (a) of this section, and before the termination of [an] independent counsel‘s office under section 596(b) of this title, such independent counsel shall submit to the division of the court a report under this subsection.
(2) A report under this subsection shall set forth fully and completely a description of the work of the independent counsel, including the disposition of all cases brought, and the reasons for not prosecuting any matter within the prosecutorial jurisdiction of such independent counsel which was not prosecuted.
(3) The division of the court may release to the Congress, the public, or to any appropri-
ate person, such portions of a report made under this subsection as the division deems appropriate. The division of the court shall make such orders as are appropriate to protect the rights of any individual named in such report and to prevent undue interference with any pending prosecution. The division of the court may make any portion of a report under this section available to any individual named in such report for the purposes of receiving within a time limit set by the division of the court any comments or factual information that such individual may submit. Such comments and factual information, in whole or in part, may in the discretion of such division be included as an appendix to such report.
The division of the court, either on its own motion or upon suggestion of the Attorney General, may terminate an office of independent counsel at any time, on the ground that the investigation of all matters within the prosecutorial jurisdiction of the independent counsel or accepted by such independent counsel under section 594(e) of this title, and any resulting prosecutions, have been completed or so substantially completed that it would be appropriate for the Department of Justice to complete such investigations and prosecutions. At the time of termination, the independent counsel shall file the report required by section 595(b) of this title.
THE FEDERALIST No. 47, at 325-26 (J. Madison) (J. Cooke ed. 1961) (emphasis in original).[Montesquieu] did not mean that these departments ought to have no partial agency in, or no controul over the acts of each other. His meaning, as his own words import, and still more conclusively as illustrated by the example in his eye, can amount to no more than this, that where the whole power of one department is exercised by the same hands which possess the whole power of another department, the fundamental principles of a free constitution, are subverted. This would have been the case in the constitution examined by him, if the King who is the sole executive magistrate, had possessed also the compleat legislative power, or the supreme administration of justice; or if the entire legislative body, had possessed the supreme judiciary, or the supreme executive authority.
However, it is far from evident that the duty to “take Care” was intended to establish unbridled authority in the President and his men. More plausibly, the words were meant to import a limitation:
Indeed, the Framers probably included the “faithful execution” clause in the Constitution to limit, not expand, the President‘s power. The clause was intended to rule out any power for him to dispense with, or suspend, the execution of the laws. Thus, the President may not always have the power to direct the execution of the laws, but merely a duty to do so when the laws have not excluded his direction.
Tiefer, The Constitutionality of Independent Officers as Checks on Abuses of Executive Power, 63 B.U.L. REV. 59, 90 (1983) (footnotes omitted). See also id. at 90 nn. 151, 152; L. TRIBE, AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 253 (2d ed. 1988); Henkin, Foreign Affairs and the Constitution, 66 FOREIGN AFFAIRS 284, 310 (1987/88) (clause obliges President to “take care that the laws [of Congress] be faithfully executed“).
The majority slides down a steep slippery slope of its own making in suggesting that my position abides any and all intrusions on the enforcement functions of the executive. See Maj. Op. at 501, 505. The correct constitutional issue, I believe, is the effect of an intrusion into one branch‘s assigned functions on the overall balance of powers. See infra p. 525 note 20; supra p. 523 note 18.
It might be argued that intrusion on the executive branch presents a greater threat than intrusion on the judiciary, because of the danger that the remaining political branch—the legislature—might occupy the area vacated by the executive. “Power abhors a vacuum. Unhitching the Independent Counsel from the executive may make the office naturally prone to domination by the branch that represents its primary competitor.” In re Sealed Case, 829 F.2d 50, 65 n. 3 (1987) (Williams, J., concurring and dissenting). But here Congress has interposed the judiciary as administrator of the independent counsel provisions, thus securing independence from legislative as well as executive interference.
While the conferees remain extremely concerned about recent erroneous statements by the Department of Justice that an independent counsel may be fired for failing to obey any Presidential order—even an order which would compromise the very integrity of an independent counsel‘s proceedings—the conferees are confident that any court reviewing the removal of such an independent counsel would reject the Department‘s reasoning. Independent Counsel Reauthorization Act of 1987, H.R.CONF. REP. NO. 452, 100th Cong., 1st Sess. 37 (1987).
Bowsher, 106 S.Ct. at 3207 n. 3 (White, J., dissenting).Although the Court in Humphrey‘s Executor characterized the powers of the Federal Trade Commissioner whose tenure was at issue as “quasi-legislative” and “quasi-judicial,” it is clear that the FTC‘s power to enforce and give content to the Federal Trade Commission Act‘s proscription of “unfair” acts and practices and methods of competition is in fact “executive” in the same sense as is the Comptroller‘s authority under Gramm-Rudman—that is, it involves the implementation, (or the interpretation and application) of an act of Congress. Thus, although the Court in Humphrey‘s Executor found the use of the labels “quasi-legislative” and “quasi-judicial” helpful in “distinguishing” its then-recent decision in Myers v. United States, [citation], these terms are hardly of any use in limiting the holding of the case; as Justice Jackson pointed out, “[t]he mere retreat to the qualifying ‘quasi’ is implicit with confession that all recognized classifications have broken down, and ‘quasi’ is a smooth cover which we draw over our confusion as we might use a counterpane to conceal a disordered bed.” FTC v. Ruberoid Co., 343 U.S. 470, 487-88 [72 S.Ct. 800, 810, 96 L.Ed. 1081 (1952)] (Jackson, J., dissenting).
The Constitution for purposes of appointment very clearly divides all its officers into two classes. The primary class requires a nomination by the President and confirmation by the Senate. But foreseeing that when offices became numerous, and sudden removals necessary, this mode might be inconvenient, it was provided that, in regard to officers inferior to those specially mentioned, Congress might by law vest their appointment in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.
The majority, on the other hand, suggests that independent counsel‘s responsibilities are comparable to those of a department head: “[I]t could well be argued that independent counsel, who often supervise more employees than cabinet departments once employed, are themselves ‘heads of departments[.]‘” Maj. Op. at 487. Whatever the merit of this anachronistic argument, it is the law of this circuit that the Attorney General may appoint an independent counsel with the exact duties granted under the Act, constrained only by the practically remote possibility that the regulation could be revoked and the appointment thereby terminated. In re Sealed Case, 829 F.2d 50 (D.C.Cir.1987), cert. denied, 108 S.Ct. 753, 98 L.Ed.2d 765 (1988). The nature and scope of the duties of such an appointee, our precedent thus affirms, fit those of an inferior officer.
DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE FIRST FEDERAL CONGRESS, 1789-1791, 5 LEGISLATIVE HISTORIES 1193-94 (1986) (Senate Bill 1 as reported to the Senate by committee member Senator Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, June 12, 1789).[E]ach District Court shall appoint a meet Person learned in the Law to act as Attorney for the United States in such District, and shall swear him to the faithful Execution of his Office, whose duty it shall be to [prosecute] in such District all Delinquents for Crimes & Offences, cognizable under the authority of the United States and all [ci]vil Actions [in which the United States shall be concerned] ... And he shall receive as a compensation for his services such Fees as shall be taxed therefor in the respective Courts before which the Suits or Prosecutions shall be—And the Supreme Court shall also appoint a meet person learned in the Law to act as Attorney General for the United States ... whose duty it shall be to prosecute and conduct all Suits in such Court in which the United States shall be concerned, and to give [his] advice and opinion upon Questions of Law when required by the President of the United States, or when requested by the Heads of any of the Departments[.]
The majority‘s argument that the change to Presidential appointment “may have been motivated by constitutional concerns,” Maj. Op. at 492, is entirely speculative. The letter from Robert Livingston quoted by the majority was cited by the House of Representatives’ Brief in support of the proposition that the decision regarding the appointment of prosecutors was one of “discretionary choice,” not constitutional compulsion. Brief of Amicus Curiae House of Representatives at 28. The House emphasizes what Livingston thought would be “better.” My colleagues place the emphasis elsewhere. No winner can be declared in debate of this order. In matters so shrouded in doubt, resort to lines later penned by framers “is often not fruitful,” surely never “determinative.” See Henkin, supra note 19, 66 FOREIGN AFFAIRS at 286, 290, 307.
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 635, 72 S.Ct. 863, 870, 96 L.Ed. 1153 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring). Compare the majority opinion at 511-17, maintaining that the court serves as independent counsel‘s day-to-day supervisor. That argument is presented under anThe actual art of governing under our Constitution does not and cannot conform to judicial definitions of the power of any of its branches based on isolated clauses or even single Articles torn from context. While the Constitution diffuses power the better to secure liberty, it also contemplates that practice will integrate the dispersed powers into a workable government. It enjoins upon its branches separateness but interdependence, autonomy but reciprocity. Presidential powers are not fixed but fluctuate, depending upon their disjunction or conjunction with those of Congress.
Tr. of Oral Argument at 130.[w]e are here today talking about errors that were made not by such Executive Branch official, we say, not by the legislature, we say, but we are here to complain in part about errors which we say were made by members of this court, and there is some discomfort in that, to argue that to you, and I would suggest that that discomfort is constitutionally based. And from my perspective, from the perspective of the accused, it is a kind of betrayal of the concept of an absolutely neutral judiciary who I can come to, who is not married to the prosecutor or who has no relationship to them.