Congressional Oversight, Explained

Congress does not just make laws, it checks how they are executed. Oversight runs through committee hearings, subpoenas, document demands, agency inspections, budget leverage, and confirmation of nominees.

Landmark examples include the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954, the Watergate hearings that exposed a presidency, the Church Committee that reformed intelligence in 1975, and the Iran-Contra hearings of 1987. The Government Accountability Office audits programs year round.

Oversight can be routine housekeeping or existential, as impeachment shows, and it is one of the few tools that works mostly through publicity rather than statute..