David Thomas: “Mr. Speaker, it was contended earlier that this resolution really does not make the Department of Justice do anything.…”

“Mr. Speaker, it was contended earlier that this resolution really does not make the Department of Justice do anything. Of course we cannot, but what we can do is express the will of the House in terms of the direction that the Department of Justice should go, and as a matter of fact we pass concurrent resolutions all the time, and as a matter of fact, we have passed some recently. For example, in the instance of the burning of churches in the South, the concurrent resolution stated that Congress hoped that the Department of Justice would pursue with all vigor the criminals and prosecute them. The resolution did not mean that the Department of Justice was going to do it, but we felt strong enough that the House wanted to tell the Department of Justice what we thought they should do. What we are talking about in terms of asking the Department of Justice to look at is a direct violation of the law. The Contested Elections Act says that if someone does not honor a subpoena, they are deemed to be guilty of a misdemeanor, and we want the Department of Justice to enforce the law. But probably in the greater sense, this is actually the story of victims.”