The Fifth Amendment in Congressional Investigations
Individuals have a broad right to refuse to testify before Congress by invoking the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, the Congressional Research Service explained last week.
“Even a witness who denies any criminal wrongdoing can refuse to answer questions on the basis that he might be ‘ensnared by ambiguous circumstances’.”
On the other hand, the scope of the Fifth Amendment privilege applies more narrowly when it comes to a congressional demand that a witness produce documents. “The Supreme Court has made clear that the mere fact that the contents of a document may be incriminating does not mean that the document is protected from disclosure under the Fifth Amendment.”
See The Fifth Amendment in Congressional Investigations, CRS Legal Sidebar, May 26, 2017.
Other new and updated products from the Congressional Research Service include the following.
President’s FY2018 Budget Proposes Cuts in Public Health Service (PHS) Agency Funding, CRS Insight, May 24, 2017
President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection: Toward Final Disclosure of Withheld Records in October 2017, CRS Insight, May 26, 2017
The FAS Nuclear Notebook is one of the most widely sourced reference materials worldwide for reliable information about the status of nuclear weapons, and has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1987.. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: Director Hans […]
On 14 April 2023, the Belarusian Ministry of Defence released a short video of a Su-25 pilot explaining his new role in delivering “special [nuclear] munitions” following his training in Russia. The features seen in the video, as well as several other open-source clues, suggest that Lida Air Base––located only 40 kilometers from the Lithuanian border and the […]
A photo in a Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) student briefing from 2022 shows four people inspecting what appears to be a damaged B61 nuclear bomb.
In early-February 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) had informed Congress that China now has more launchers for Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) than the United States. The report is the latest in a serious of revelations over the past four years about China’s growing nuclear weapons arsenal and the deepening […]