Q&A Hero

Question

For purposes of Questions 28 and 29, assume that it is November 2006. Republicans still control the U.S. Supreme Court (seven Republicans and two Democrats) but a Democrat, Howard Lark, is now president of the United States, and Democrats control the House of Representatives. The Democratic Party also controls the Senate. But in the election of 2006 the party lost several seats, such thatbeginning in January 2007, when the new senators are to be sworn inthe Senate is going to be controlled by Republicans, though by a slim margin (forty-nine Democrats and fifty-one Republicans).
During his 2006 campaign to become a U.S. senator, the famous movie star Clint Terminator (a Republican from California) was under constant attack from the major newspapers in California. Among the most serious charges reported in the press was that Terminator had sexually harassed or even assaulted as many as fifteen women between 2000 and 2005.
Despite these and other allegations of improper (perhaps even illegal) behavior, Terminator won the election by a wide margin. But his troubles were not over. The Democratic attorney general of California had begun an investigation into Terminator's activities to determine whether he had violated any state laws,. And the lame-duck Democratic Senate saw the investigation as a way to regain control of the Senate: if it could get rid of Terminator and elect a Democrat in his place, the Senate would be divided evenly, with fifty senators from each party. This situation would enable Lark's vice president to break any ties.
One week after the election, on November 15, 2006, the Senate, pursuant to Article I, Section 5, of the U.S. Constitution, formed a committee specifically to investigate the accusations of sexual harassment against Terminator. The charge to this committee, the Select Committee on Ethics, read as follows: "The Senate of the United States will not tolerate misconduct on the part of its members or potential members. The Senate charges the Select Committee on Ethics with the task of determining whether Clint Terminator engaged in illegal or questionable activities. To this end, the committee may gather any information and call upon any witnesses it deems relevant."
The first witness called to testify before the committee, Terminator's agent, revealed an interesting piece of information: since 1995 Terminator had kept an extensive computer journal of all his activities. Upon hearing this information, the committee asked Terminator to turn over a computer disk containing the contents of his journal. The committee also called Terminator to testify before it.
Terminator agreed to allow the congressional committee to review everything in his journal except accounts of "personal, private family matters." Once the committee consented to this request, Terminator turned over the disk. But, much to the committee's dismay, no entries for the years 2001 to 2003 were included not on the disk. When the committee asked him about this, Terminator said he had accidentally erased the files for those years from his hard drive. Knowing that a computer expert could recover the information, the committee requested that Terminator to turn over his computer. Terminator refused, claiming that he would not have an opportunity to excise personal entries. But the committee members did not buy his argument; instead, they it voted unanimously to force him to turn over the computer.
When Terminator appeared before the committee, he again refused this request. When the chair of the committee asked him why, Terminator refused to answer. He also would not answer the chair's next questions: "With how many women have you had sexual relations over the last five years?" "Did you discuss your sexual relations with anyone? A friend, a family member?" In fact, immediately after the chair asked these questions, Terminator stated that he would not answer any of the committee's questions.
The committee cited Terminator for contempt, and he challenged its orders in a federal court. He alleged that (1) the committee could not conduct investigations into this particular subject, (2) the committee's purpose was too vague, and (3) the committee's questions lacked pertinence.
Suppose you are the judge hearing this case. Based on U.S. Supreme Court precedent, how would you rule on each of these claims and why?