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Formerly the Office of Representative Gerry Connolly
The Washington, D.C., office and the district office of former Representative Connolly will continue to serve the people of the 11th Congressional District of Virginia under the supervision of the Clerk of the House of Representatives. Representative Connolly passed away on May 21, 2025. See Press Release

Connolly Condemns Efforts to Weaken Constitutional Rights

Washington, DC, June 28, 2013
Connolly calls OGR Committee proceedings to strip fifth amendment rights an abuse of power. Read more.
At today’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Congressman Gerry Connolly (VA-11) called the Committee majority’s attempts to tear down Lois Lerner’s Fifth Amendment Rights “an egregious abuse of power that tramples the Constitution and serves no valid legislative purpose.”   
Connolly added that “the majority has brought us to a point where we risk  allowing this Committee to be transformed into a Star Chamber proceeding that establishes future Legislative Branch precedent where any Chairman - whether a Democrat or a Republican - is free to compel an American invoking their Constitutional right against self-incrimination to physically appear before the Committee for no other reason than to be pilloried, delayed, embarrassed, and burdened into unknowingly, unintentionally, and ironically, forfeiting the very sacred constitutional right that is intended to protect every American against forced self-incrimination by the government.”
Full statement follows.
Connolly Statement on Lois Lerner’s Fifth Amendment Right
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
June 28, 2013 
Today’s Business Meeting is an egregious abuse of power that tramples the Constitution and serves no valid legislative purpose. The majority is headed down a dangerous path with its latest cynical ploy to tear down the Fifth Amendment’s privilege against self-incrimination - which the Supreme Court has held is “a privilege of great value, a protection to the innocent though a shelter to the guilty, and a safeguard against heedless, unfounded or tyrannical prosecutions.” 
Make no mistake, the majority has brought us to a point where we risk allowing this Committee to be transformed into a Star Chamber proceeding that establishes future Legislative Branch precedent where any Chairman - whether a Democrat or a Republican - is free to compel an American invoking their Constitutional right against self-incrimination to physically appear before the Committee for no other reason than to be pilloried, delayed, embarrassed, and burdened into unknowingly, unintentionally, and ironically, forfeiting the very sacred constitutional right that is intended to protect every American against forced self-incrimination by the government. 
While I have no doubt that any Court will reject the unconstitutional and unsupported arguments contained in the majority’s resolution; I only hope that the public and the press will also recognize this proceeding for what it truly is - a pure, political stunt that is full of vitriol, yet lacking any compelling legal question worthy of debate. The bottom line is that with respect to the question before us today - does a general assertion of innocence by an American who clearly states the intention to invoke, subsequently invokes, and never waivers from invoking the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, constitute “unequivocally and intelligently” waiving the privilege being invoked - the answer is crystal clear, no. 
One need only review long-standing, broad judicial interpretations of the Fifth Amendment’s privilege against self-incrimination to understand that as the Second Circuit Court of Appeals found in Klein v. Harris, a waiver of this privilege must not be “lightly inferred” and that “every reasonable presumption against finding waiver” should be exercised. Further, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia’s decision in United States v. Hoag is particularly instructive with respect to Ms. Lerner’s statement before the Committee on May 22, 2013, since in that case, it was ruled that the following statement did not constitute a waiver of the privilege against self-incrimination with respect to refusing to answer subsequent questions on the topics addressed:
“I have never engaged in espionage nor sabotage. I am not so engaged. I will not so engage in the future. I am not a spy nor saboteur.”
It is as sad, as it is fitting, that to evaluate the validity of the principles contained in the Chairman’s resolution before the Committee, we are forced to consult McCarthy-era judicial rulings on compelled testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and Senator McCarthy’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Let me repeat that, for it should give every member of the majority pause, and provide necessary context to the public on what is really going on here, to determine whether the assertions of the Chairman’s resolution pass constitutional-muster, we must literally go back and read case law addressing similar situations that resulted from the disgraceful practices of the House Committee on Un-American Activities and Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was described by Harvard Law Dean Ervin Griswold as playing “judge, jury, prosecutor, castigator, and press agent, all in one.”
I would ask the majority to consider whether under their leadership this Committee will have left any sense of decency if they persist in using the trappings of Congress as cover for what are at their core, simply unfair  and cruel character assassinations and baseless grand inquisitions.
In closing, I would just like to remind my colleagues of the judicial standard that was established by the Supreme Court of the United States as it eloquently pushed back against governmental overreach and abuse of power in its Quinn v. United States ruling:
There can be no doubt as to the power of Congress, by itself or through its committees, to investigate matters and conditions relating to contemplated legislation. This power, deeply rooted in American and English institutions, is indeed co-extensive with the power to legislate. Without the power to investigate—including of course the authority to compel testimony, either through its own processes or through judicial trial—Congress could be seriously handicapped in its efforts to exercise its constitutional function wisely and effectively.
But the power to investigate, broad as it may be, is also subject to recognized limitations. It cannot be used to inquire into private affairs unrelated to a valid legislative purpose. Nor does it extend to an area in which Congress is forbidden to legislate. Similarly, the power to investigate must not be confused with any of the powers of law enforcement; those powers are assigned under our Constitution to the Executive and the Judiciary. Still further limitations on the power to investigate are found in the specific individual guarantees of the Bill of Rights, such as the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination which is in issue here.
The privilege against self-incrimination is a right that was hard-earned by our forefathers. The reasons for its inclusion in the Constitution—and the necessities for its preservation—are to be found in the lessons of history. As early as 1650, remembrance of the horror of Star Chamber proceedings a decade before had firmly established the privilege in the common law of England. Transplanted to this country as part of our legal heritage, it soon made its way into various state constitutions and ultimately in 1791 into the federal Bill of Rights. The privilege, this Court has stated, "was generally regarded then, as now, as a privilege of great value, a protection to the innocent though a shelter to the guilty, and a safeguard against heedless, unfounded or tyrannical prosecutions." Co-equally with our other constitutional guarantees, the Self-Incrimination Clause "must be accorded liberal construction in favor of the right it was intended to secure."
Such liberal construction is particularly warranted in a prosecution of a witness for a refusal to answer, since the respect normally accorded the privilege is then buttressed by the presumption of innocence accorded a defendant in a criminal trial. To apply the privilege narrowly or begrudgingly—to treat it as an historical relic, at most merely to be tolerated—is to ignore its development and purpose.
In the instant case petitioner was convicted for refusing to answer the committee's question as to his alleged membership in the Communist Party. Clearly an answer to the question might have tended to incriminate him.[29] As a consequence, petitioner was entitled to claim the privilege. The principal issue here is whether or not he did.
It is agreed by all that a claim of the privilege does not require any special combination of words. Plainly a witness need not have the skill of a lawyer to invoke the protection of the Self-Incrimination Clause. If an objection to a question is made in any language that a committee may reasonably be expected to understand as an attempt to invoke the privilege, it must be respected both by the committee and by a court in a prosecution under § 192.
…
As everyone agrees, no ritualistic formula is necessary in order to invoke the privilege. In the instant case, Quinn's references to the Fifth Amendment were clearly sufficient to put the committee on notice of an apparent claim of the privilege. It then became incumbent on the committee either to accept the claim or to ask petitioner whether he was in fact invoking the privilege. Particularly is this so if it is true, as the Government contends, that petitioner feared the stigma that might result from a forthright claim of his constitutional right to refuse to testify. It is precisely at such times—when the privilege is under attack by those who wrongly conceive of it as merely a shield for the guilty—that governmental bodies must be most scrupulous in protecting its exercise.
This ruling by no means leaves a congressional committee defenseless at the hands of a scheming witness intent on deception. When a witness declines to answer a question because of constitutional objections and the language used is not free from doubt, the way is always open for the committee to inquire into the nature of the claim before making a ruling. If the witness unequivocally and intelligently waives any objection based on the Self-Incrimination Clause, or if the witness refuses a committee request to state whether he relies on the Self-Incrimination Clause, he cannot later invoke its protection in a prosecution for contempt for refusing to answer that question.