Facts:

Next to the endemic corruption of the last few congresses, one of the greatest shortcomings was their reticence to use their oversight authority of the Executive.

Congressional oversight is an implied rather than enumerated power under the Constitution. It derives from the many and varied express powers of the Congress and was formally legitimized by the Supreme Court in the 1927 landmark case of McGrain v. Daugherty.

Mr. McHugh still refuses to subscribe to the necessity of oversight. H. Res. 35 extends oversight to the appropriations made for Intelligence activities. To quote the purposes of the Select Intelligence Oversight Panel:

The select panel shall review and study on a continuing basis budget requests for and execution of intelligence activities; make recommendations to relevant subcommittees of the Committee on Appropriations; and, on an annual basis, prepare a report to the Defense Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations containing budgetary and oversight observations and recommendations for use by such subcommittee in preparation of the classified annex to the bill making appropriations for the Department of Defense.

In keeping with the past, he predictably voted against oversight.

Opinion:

Congressional oversight over the President and all levels of the Executive is far overdue. In the last six years we have seen biggest expansion of the size and powers of the government. It is now the largest most intrusive government in our history. All that with a wink and a nod of the Republican congresses. Aggressive oversight is long overdue.

Maybe he’s afraid of what he will find. For the classics scholars, you’ll rembemer that Oedipus kept looking for the truth and when he found it, it was so horrific that he gouged his eyes out.