Sponsor
Rich McCormick
Representative · R-GA
Representative · R-GA
The bill strengthens congressional oversight enforcement and speeds remedies against uncooperative witnesses, but does so at the cost of increased criminal and employment penalties, reduced procedural protections, and a higher risk of politicized or rushed funding decisions that could disrupt government operations.
Federal agencies and Congress gain stronger enforcement tools: refusal to answer and perjury can be used as grounds for debarment and civil-service removal, making it easier to sanction noncooperative federal employees.
Members of Congress and oversight committees can more quickly strip salary/expense funds from an employing entity of a recalcitrant federal witness via an expedited privileged joint-resolution process (180-day timeline), increasing the speed of congressional remedies.
Affected individuals and agencies retain a court avenue: the bill permits judicial review of debarments and privileged rescission resolutions, allowing challenges to adverse employment and funding decisions.
Federal employees who are called as witnesses risk automatic debarment and civil-service removal for refusing to answer, exposing them to job loss even when legal or constitutional defenses (e.g., privilege, immunity) might apply.
Any single Member of Congress can trigger the expedited process to remove salary funds from an employing entity for a fiscal year, increasing the risk of politicized appropriations decisions and raising separation-of-powers and due-process concerns.
The bill creates a new criminal penalty (fine $100–$1,000 and 1–12 months imprisonment) for witnesses who refuse to answer, increasing legal exposure for persons summoned to testify.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Adds debarment and civil-service removal for summoned witnesses who refuse to answer or are convicted, and creates an expedited Member-initiated process to rescind an employing entity’s salary/expense funds.
Official title: To amend section 102 of the Revised Statutes of the United States to provide that a person who refuses to answer certain questions or is finally convicted of perjury before either House of Congress shall be debarred from Federal employment, and for other purposes.
Introduced July 30, 2026 by Rich McCormick · Last progress July 30, 2026
Adds new penalties and removal authorities for witnesses who refuse to answer questions after being summoned or who are convicted of perjury or false statements, and allows removal from civil service for federal employees who violate these rules. Creates an expedited procedure permitting any Member of Congress to introduce a privileged joint resolution, within 180 days of certification to a U.S. attorney, to rescind salary and expense funds for the witness’s employing entity for that fiscal year, with specific referral, reporting, floor-vote, conference, and timing rules and judicial review of debarments.