It ’s relatively rough-cut for aU.S. presidentto get involved in some sort of investigation during or after their stint in the Oval Office . The nature of that involvement and the type of investigation have varied wide over the year .
In 1807 , for model , Thomas Jeffersonturned over documents afterdeclining a subpoenasoliciting his testimony atAaron Burr ’s treason trial ; Ulysses S. Grant , on the other hired man , oncevoluntarily testifiedas a defense witness during a criminal trial against his personal secretary .
In other case — like Bill Clinton’s — the sitting President of the United States has n’t just been on the outer boundary of an investigation . Jimmy Carteris another good example : He testified during a 1979special counsel probeinto the fiscal dealings of his crime syndicate peanut byplay ( nothing incriminate was unearthed ) . There are also a number of time where President have complied with or denied call for evidence [ PDF ] . During theWatergatefiasco , Richard Nixondid both .
Many congressional inquiries have featured presidential testimony , too — often , but not always , after a president has left theWhite House . They have n’t all been examining a past president ’s ( or anyone ’s ) actions for potential criminality ; passably oft , a chairwoman would show up to guard or oppose a part of legislation or offer advice on a congressional course of natural process . Below are nine U.S. presidents who have — subpoenaed or not — appeared before a congressional committee in soul for one reason or another ( and one who refused a process ) .
1. and 2. John Quincy Adams and John Tyler
In 1846 , Pennsylvania congresswoman C.J. IngersollaccusedMassachusetts senatorDaniel Websterof misappropriating money from the Presidential Secret Service Fund when Webster was secretary of state from 1841 to 1843 . Then - PresidentJames Polkagreed to bring out the amounts spent during that full point , but he would n’t disclose how the money was actually used . The fund was intend for espionage and other secret surgical process involving international affairs , and Polkfeltit was n’t his property to publicize information that the premature president had kept class . So the Houseset uptwo investigatory committees that then subpoena the former chairwoman , John Tyler , who testified that all of Webster ’s expenditures had been above board .
It ’s been reported thatJohn Quincy Adamswas also subpoenaed , prompting him to relegate a written deposition with item on how the fund had been used during his own presidency in the 1820s [ PDF ] . But even if neither commission delivered Adams an prescribed summons — or solicited intel specifically from his presidential tenure — he definitely was involved in the investigation . At the sentence , Adams himself was a member of the House of Representatives ( serving Massachusetts ) , and his stint aschairof the House ’s foreign affairs citizens committee had overlap with Webster ’s secretaryship . Adamsdidn’t timid awayfrom speaking up during House meetings on Ingersoll ’s allegement .
3. Abraham Lincoln
In December 1861,TheNew York Heraldpublishedparts of a words that then - PresidentAbraham Lincolnwas slate to deliver to Congress . The House Judiciary Committee identified valet - about - townHenry Wikoffas the leaker , but how he ’d come by the manner of speaking was a slimly dicier subject . Generally catch as an unscrupulous rogue , Wikoff boasted a close friendship with Mary Todd Lincoln , who ’d taken him on as a societal advisor of sort . It seemed most potential that she ’d given him the document — an idea reinforced by theunsubstantiatedbut not rare opinion that sheharbored Confederate fellow feeling .
In the close , White House gardener John Watt ( another Quaker of Mary ’s with abad reputation ) copped tofinding the speechin the library and reiterate what he remembered from it to Wikoff . The committee reportedly accepted this story in part because the Chief Executive himself showed up to prove on his wife ’s behalf , though details of his appearance remain unclear . concord to effectual scholar Ronald Rotunda , the hearing ms “ are equivocal on the question of Lincoln ’s presence ” at all [ PDF ] , but it was reported in a issue of newspaper at the metre .
4. Theodore Roosevelt
In 1911 , the Houseestablisheda committee to investigate U.S. Steel ’s 1907 leverage of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company as a possible rift of the Sherman Anti - Trust Act of 1890 . Not only hadTheodore Rooseveltbeen president then , but he ’d approved the sale — and he gamely show at a commission hearing to justify why .
When the committee chairmanthankedRoosevelt for his “ kindness in come along … and answering so amply and completely every question , ” Roosevelt reply that “ an ex - President is merely a citizen of the United States , like any other citizen , and it is his plain responsibility to try and help this committee or respond to its invitation , just as anyone else would respond . ”
With that attitude , it ’s no surprise that Roosevelt again volunteered to testify the very next year , this time before a Senate subcommittee regarding fundraising ventures during his own 1904 reelection campaign . Rooseveltdeniedpersonally solicit money from corporations and stressed that any such donations came with no strings attach and held no sway over his legal action as president .
5. William Howard Taft
Roosevelt ’s successortestifiedin front of various congressional citizens committee more than a dozen times after leaving function in 1913 . The first was in January 1915 , when heappearedbefore the Senate Committee on the Philippines to fence against U.S. acknowledgement of Philippine independency . ( His plea failed to prevent the passage of the 1916Jones Act , which stated the U.S. would forgo sovereignty “ as shortly as a stable government can be established therein . ” It did n’t reallyrelinquish sovereigntyuntil after World War II . )
A couple other congressional affair thatTaftshowed up to weigh in on post - presidentship included the need to establish a national budget scheme and the need to relocate the Supreme Court from Capitol Hill to its own premises ( both finally successful endeavors ) . Many of Taft ’s congressionaltestimonieswere given in his capacity as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court , a position heheldfrom 1921 to 1930 .
6. Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilsonwas still in office inAugust 1919when he tried to convince the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Senate should ratify the Treaty of Versailles . “ Every element of normal life amongst us depends upon and awaits the confirmation of the treaty of peace , ” hesaidin his opening remarks , followedby a 3.5 - hour question - and - answer seance . Wilson did at least come after in getting the Senate tovoteon the treaty — which they did twice , in November 1919 and March 1920 — but it was rejected both times , in part because Wilson was soresistantto amend it .
7. Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover’slist of congressional committee appearances is even longer than Taft ’s . Itstartsin December 1941 , when he was invited to advise the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency on the Emergency Price Control Act . Hoover hadheaded upthe U.S. Food Administration during World War I , so he had first - paw experience in conserve resource throughout a global crisis . At the committee hearing , the former president not onlyarguedthat “ price controls are dead imperative to pull ahead the war , ” but he also enumerated 14 ways in which lawmaker should transfer their focus from price mastery to “ commodity restraint ” for protect the national economy . In previous January 1942 , President Franklin D. Rooseveltsignedthe number into law .
AfterHarry Trumansucceeded Roosevelt in 1945 , heaskedHoover to call in the White House “ to talk over the European intellectual nourishment situation ” and eventually ended up sending him to more than three twelve nations to evaluate how the U.S. could help them avoid famine in the aftermath of World War II . William Hoover thenchairedtwo separate so - called “ Hoover Commissions ” that modernize the executive branch to “ promote thriftiness , efficiency , and improved avail . ” Throughout ( and beyond ) the Truman administration , it was n’t that uncommon for Hoover to show up at a congressional hearing to talk over his notion on those and other matters .
8. Harry S. Truman
Trumantestifiedbefore congressional committees several times after leaving the Oval Office as well . During a recap of the U.S. ’s United Nations charter in April 1955 , headvisedthe Senate Foreign Relations Committee to “ be everlastingly careful not to throw away the good and great instrument we already have in a lookup for something better , ” though he did admit that the U.N. had room for melioration . In subsequent show between 1957 and 1959 , Truman advise unselfishness in apportioning strange aid , backed a $ 5 billion tax cut of meat for low- and middle - income demographic , and recommended the annulment of the 22nd Amendment ( which prohibit prexy from serving more than twofour - twelvemonth terminus ) .
But Truman is better recollect for his one refusal to testify . In November 1953 , the House Un - American Activities Committeesubpoenaedthe former president over the U.S. attorney general ’s accusation that Truman knew Harry Dexter White was a spy for the Soviet Union ( still a factious claim ) when White wasappointedas the International Monetary Fund ’s U.S. executive theatre director in 1946 . Truman wane to comply with the subpoena on the dry land that compliance would violate the philosophy of the separation of powers .
“ The President … would become a simple arm of the Legislative Branch … if he would feel during his term of agency that his every act might be subject to official research and possible torture for political purposes ” even after he left power , Trumanwrote , and the House never held him in despite of Congress for his failure to come along . In lieu of a congressional sense of hearing , Truman denied the accusation during anational broadcastin which he detail what he knew about the allegations against White , when he knew it , and why he believed the attorney general ’s call was McCarthyist “ political skulduggery . ”
9. Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford’smost notable congressional testimony was on October 17 , 1974 , when he voluntarily explain to the House Judiciary Committee ’s subcommittee on criminal justice why he ’d pardonedRichard Nixon . In Ford’sopening financial statement , he said he ’d wanted “ to lurch our attentions from the pursuit of a fallen Chief Executive to the pursuit of the urgent needs of a originate nation”—needs that would be neglected if the land “ were to remain sharply divided over whether to indict , bring to trial , and punish a former President . ” But Ford was confident that the pardon “ will not cause us to draw a blank the evil of Watergate - type offense or to draw a blank the lessons we have learned that a government which deceives its champion and treats its opponent as enemies must never , never be digest . ”
Fordappearedbefore congressional citizens committee twice after he left agency in 1977 : once in 1978 to defend the 1963–1964 Warren Commission ’s conclusions on theJFK assassination(Ford had served on the commission ) , and again in 1983 tooffer adviceon how to lionize the 1987 bicentennial day of remembrance of the Constitution .
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