Litigation by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to enforce a subpoena for documents from Carl Ferrer, the CEO of Backpage, an online forum accused of contributing to sex trafficking, has taken another interesting twist, with the D.C. District Court ruling that Backpage cannot assert the attorney-client privilege to protect certain documents.  It is rare for a court to issue a ruling on attorney-client privilege in a congressional investigation, and the court’s ruling has significant implications for any individual or company facing demands from Congress for documents, information, or testimony.

Continue Reading The Latest Twist in the Backpage Litigation and its Implications for the Attorney-Client Privilege in Congressional Investigations

Last week, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in a rare case that has the potential to contribute significantly to the case law concerning congressional investigations. It is uncommon for a federal court to have an opportunity to rule on a congressional subpoena – congressional subpoenas generally cannot be challenged in court unless the recipient defies Congress and Congress votes to hold the recipient in contempt.  Most private sector companies simply cannot endure the bad publicity and reputational damage that accompanies a congressional contempt proceeding.  Backpage, an online forum for classified advertisements that includes advertisements for adult services, and its CEO Carl Ferrer apparently are not swayed by such concerns.

For more than a year, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has been conducting an investigation of Backpage as part of an inquiry into human trafficking. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, advertisements on Backpage are associated with “a majority of the child sex trafficking cases being reported” to the organization.

After conducting an interview of Backpage’s general counsel in June 2015, the Subcommittee subpoenaed Backpage for documents in July 2015. Almost immediately, Backpage objected to the subpoena on First Amendment grounds.  After further back and forth, the Subcommittee subpoenaed Backpage’s CEO Carl Ferrer for a narrower set of documents and ordered him to appear at a hearing on November 19, 2015.  Backpage produced a limited set of documents to the Subcommittee, but it continued to object to a further response on First Amendment grounds.  Ferrer did not appear at the November hearing, and the Subcommittee held a hearing with an empty chair before it – another rarity in congressional investigations.  The Subcommittee approved a resolution to enforce its subpoena, and the resolution was adopted by the full Senate in March 2016.

In its ruling last week, the District Court found for the Subcommittee, rejecting four defenses raised by Ferrer.

First, the court addressed Ferrer’s claim that it lacked jurisdiction to hear the case because the Senate sought to enforce only three of the eight requests contained in the subpoena. Ferrer’s argument was based on a unique aspect of the statute authorizing the Senate to enforce its subpoena in court – the statute states that the court may not “modify” the subpoena.  In Ferrer’s view, selective enforcement equates to modification.  The court disagreed, stating that the statute does not constrain the Subcommittee’s ability to seek partial enforcement of its subpoenas.  Therefore, the court was enforcing, unmodified, those parts of the subpoena brought before it by the Senate.

Second, the court rejected Ferrer’s argument that the subpoena was not tied to a legitimate legislative purpose. Under Supreme Court precedents, Congress has the power to investigate any subject on which it can legislate.  Given that Congress can legislate on sex trafficking and the internet, and Congress has previously legislated on internet publishers’ immunity for statements of third parties, the court easily concluded that the subpoena was related to a legitimate legislative purpose.

Third, the court examined Ferrer’s First Amendment defenses and concluded that they did not protect him from complying with the subpoena. Ferrer claimed that the Subcommittee’s subpoena encroached on his First Amendment rights, sought to punish disfavored speech, and chilled his exercise of his First Amendment rights.  The court was unconvinced.  The court was most critical of Ferrer’s attempted use of the First Amendment to shield Backpage from even searching for materials in response to the subpoena, determining which of the documents reflect speech protected by the First Amendment, and explaining the specific manner in which the subpoena would intrude on First Amendment rights.  The court concluded that Ferrer’s position that “any responsive document that has not been produced contains constitutionally-protected information that no governmental need could possibly overcome” is “untenable and without legal support.”

Finally, the court rejected Ferrer’s claim that the investigation violated his due process rights by being ill-defined in scope and shifting in focus. The court described these arguments as “undeveloped,” “devoid of legal support,” and “unclear.”

The court ordered Ferrer to comply with the Subcommittee’s subpoena within ten days.

Instead of producing the subpoenaed documents, this week, Ferrer appealed the District Court’s decision to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and simultaneously sought to postpone his compliance with the subpoena while the appeal is pending. In his motion to stay compliance with the subpoena, Ferrer focused on his First Amendment arguments:  The District Court “misapprehends the nature of Mr. Ferrer’s First Amendment claims and undervalued the constitutional interests at stake,” the filing said.

Depending on the outcome of the appeal, this case may contribute significantly to the case law concerning congressional investigations and the enforceability of congressional subpoenas.

Litigation to enforce a congressional subpoena against a private sector company or individual is rare. According to the Senate Legal Counsel’s filings in the case, the Senate has sought to enforce a subpoena under its civil enforcement authority only five times, with the last enforcement proceeding occurring in 1994.  This case provides an opportunity for the appellate court to consider aspects of the statute that are rarely addressed in litigation, such as Ferrer’s argument regarding the statute’s limitation on courts modifying a subpoena.

Practitioners and scholars generally consider jurisdictional challenges to congressional investigations to be foreclosed by the modern scope of Congress’s legislative authority. Because Congress’s legislative reach is so broad, and its investigative authority is coextensive with its legislative authority, Congress can investigate practically anything, the reasoning goes.  The appellate court may have an opportunity to address these issues if Ferrer continues to argue that the subpoena is not tied to a legitimate legislative purpose.

Finally, and potentially most significant, it appears that the D.C. Circuit will have an opportunity to address the limitations that constitutional protections place on congressional investigations. Although Congress takes a dim view of many privileges and protections, including the attorney-client privilege and executive privilege, Congress readily acknowledges that it is bound by constitutional limitations such as the First Amendment.  There is very little recent case law addressing constitutional protections in the context of congressional investigations, even as the Supreme Court’s views on the First Amendment and other constitutional rights have evolved over recent decades.

In late October, the House of Representatives quietly approved a bill that would dramatically strengthen Congress’s procedures for enforcing congressional subpoenas.  In adopting the bill, the bipartisan leadership of the House Judiciary Committee highlighted the challenges that Congress faces in obtaining materials from executive branch agencies.  Significant portions of the bill, however, apply to all congressional subpoenas, including subpoenas issued to private sector individuals and entities.

After passing the House, the legislation is currently pending in the Senate Judiciary Committee.  The staff of the Senate Judiciary has indicated an interest in enhancing Congress’s subpoena enforcement procedures.  In 2015 and 2016, the Senate engaged in a lengthy legal battle to enforce a subpoena against Backpage, an online forum accused of contributing to sex trafficking, and its CEO Carl Ferrer.  We therefore believe that legislation to strengthen congressional subpoena enforcement is likely, but it is not yet clear whether the Senate will support the House bill or propose its own alternative.

The key provisions of the bill, H.R. 4010, the Congressional Subpoena Compliance and Enforcement Act, include the following:

  • The bill would establish special rules applicable only to civil litigation brought by Congress to enforce a subpoena. Courts would be required to “expedite to the greatest possible extent” the resolution of such cases.  Congress would be permitted to request a hearing before a three-judge panel of the district court, rather than proceeding through the usual district court process.  In such instances, the legislation would eliminate intermediate appeals – any appeal would go directly to the Supreme Court.
  • The legislation would authorize “monetary penalties” against the head of a government agency found by a court to have willfully failed to comply with any part of a congressional subpoena. Importantly, the legislation would prohibit the use of any government funds to pay the penalty, presumably leaving the government official personally on the hook.
  • In a change that has significant implications for companies and individuals that receive congressional subpoenas, the legislation would provide that privileges against responding to a subpoena may be waived if a recipient does not specifically assert the privilege in a detailed privilege log provided to Congress.
  • The legislation also prescribes – with extreme precision – the information that a subpoena recipient must include in a privilege log. The bill would require, for each record withheld, the following:
    • “An express assertion and description of the legal basis asserted for withholding the record.”
    • The type and general subject matter of the record, and the date, author, addressee, and custodian of the record.
    • “The relationship of the author and addressee to each other.”
    • “Any other descriptive information that may be produced or disclosed regarding the record that will enable the congressional committee or subcommittee issuing the subpoena to assess the legal basis asserted for withholding the record.”
  • The legislation would require that subpoena respondents submit electronic information to Congress in the native electronic format.
  • Finally, the legislation reiterates Congress’s longstanding position that it is not bound by common law privileges, including the attorney-client privilege. The bill states that the legislation may not be interpreted “to establish Congress’ acceptance of any asserted privilege or other legal basis for noncompliance with a congressional subpoena.”

Recent disputes between Congress and subpoena recipients – including the Fast and Furious investigation in the Obama Administration and the Senate’s investigation of Backpage – would likely have evolved very differently under the procedures proposed in this legislation.  Indeed, the privilege log requirement may be a direct reaction to issues Congress confronted with Backpage.

Although the legislation was sponsored entirely by Republican Members of Congress, it passed the Judiciary Committee unanimously, and it passed the House under suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds supermajority.  Although congressional subpoenas are often the subject of partisan conflict, the wide support for this legislation likely reflects the parties’ shared institutional interests in seeing subpoenas enforced.

The long saga of the legal challenge by Carl Ferrer, CEO of Backpage, to a subpoena issued by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (“PSI”) appears to have reached a conclusion.  A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit this week dismissed the case as moot and additionally vacated a series of prior rulings by the district court in the case.  The D.C. Circuit’s ruling effectively wipes the slate clean, erasing a district court action that seemed to open the door to a rare adjudication of Congress’s ability to compel the production of documents covered by the attorney-client privilege, while possibly making it significantly more difficult for individuals and companies to assert the privilege before Congress.

Although it may come as a surprise to many observers, including experienced litigation attorneys, both the Senate and House maintain that they are not required to respect the attorney-client privilege or the related attorney work product doctrine.  Congressional lawyers contend that such privileges are judicial, common law privileges that do not bind legislatures.  Congress’s position is rooted in the Constitution’s separation of powers and the inherent legislative authority to conduct investigations.

Congressional investigators often use this dynamic as a source of leverage over corporations and others from whom they seek to obtain documents or testimony.  Although it is relatively rare for a committee actually to compel production of privileged documents, it does happen.  For example, Congress did so in a high profile case involving Bank of America some years ago.  Over the years, Congress, corporations, and the courts have managed to steer clear of opportunities to test Congress’s position that it need not respect the attorney-client privilege, and there has never been a definitive court ruling on the topic, even though Congress has staked out this position for more than a century.

In Ferrer’s case, the company withheld attorney-client privileged documents, as well as other documents, but PSI contended that the company had not explicitly asserted the attorney-client privilege until relatively late in the process.  The district court agreed and held that Backpage had waived its ability to object based on the attorney-client privilege, and it ordered the company to produce documents.  PSI’s arguments, however, opened potentially dangerous ground for Congress.  In finding that Ferrer had waived the privilege, the court’s ruling seemed to suggest that such a privilege existed before Congress.  After all, how could Ferrer have waived something that did not exist?

During the weeks and months that the litigation and appeal developed, PSI completed its investigation, issued a final report, and held its final hearing in January 2017.  In the D.C. Circuit, PSI informed the court that it would not certify its continued interest in enforcing the subpoena, which was required in this instance because a new Congress convened in January, and it advanced the mootness argument, perhaps in recognition of the risk associated with an appellate ruling on the attorney-client privilege before Congress.  Although Ferrer, with the support of various amici, continued to press the appeal, the Court determined that the case was moot because PSI no longer was seeking to compel production of documents.  The Court then went one step further and actually vacated the decisions of the district court below, so that the lower court’s decisions will not have precedential value in future cases involving congressional investigations.

This outcome essentially restores the status quo ante, in which congressional investigation committees and those under investigation will bargain around Congress’s position on the attorney-client privilege without any real guidance from a controlling court decision.  Given the dramatic impact that would have been felt if the Backpage case had led to a ruling on the applicability of attorney-client privilege in congressional investigations, it is not altogether surprising that PSI in the end sought to avert a ruling by the court on the issue, and that the D.C. Circuit was very willing to oblige.

The Supreme Court today refused to block a subpoena by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the online forum Backpage and its CEO Carl Ferrer.  As we previously reported, Ferrer lost at the District Court in his effort to block the Senate subpoena, arguing primarily that the subpoena abridged his First Amendment rights.  Ferrer appealed the District Court’s decision to the Court of Appeals.  Since losing at the District Court, Ferrer has been fighting a parallel battle to delay the enforcement of the subpoena while the appeal is pending.

Ferrer sought a stay of the subpoena from the District Court and lost; sought a stay from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and lost; and finally sought a stay from the Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court delayed the enforcement of the subpoena briefly last week to permit both sides to submit briefs, but today’s action lifts that reprieve.  Ferrer will now face a short deadline with which to comply with the Senate’s demand for documents.

Continue Reading Supreme Court Refuses to Stay Senate Subpoena, Highlights the Difficulties Inherent in Challenging a Congressional Subpoena