Jack Bascom Brooks was born December 18, 1922, in Crowley, Louisiana. His family moved to Beaumont, Texas, in 1927. He enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1942 and served overseas for 23 months at Guadalcanal, Guam, Okinawa, and northern China before being discharged as a first lieutenant in 1946. He earned his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law in 1949 and was admitted to the Texas bar the same year. Brooks represented Texas's 2nd Congressional District from 1953 to 1967, then Texas's 9th Congressional District (Beaumont and Jefferson County) from 1967 to 1995. He died December 4, 2012, in Beaumont, at age 89.[^1] ### Congressional Career Brooks served 42 years in the House of Representatives, one of the longest tenures in Texas congressional history. He chaired the House Committee on Government Operations from 1975 to 1988, during which he authored the Brooks Act governing federal government procurement of information technology -- earning an informal designation as "father of federal IT procurement." He chaired the House Judiciary Committee from 1989 until his defeat in 1994.[^1] Brooks was present aboard Air Force One on November 22, 1963, when Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as President following the assassination of [[John F. Kennedy]]. He is visible in the Cecil Stoughton photograph of the ceremony, standing to the upper right of Jacqueline Kennedy.[^1] ### INSLAW Investigation In 1989, as newly appointed chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Brooks opened a formal investigation into allegations that the [[Department of Justice]] had stolen [[INSLAW]]'s [[PROMIS]] software. On September 10, 1992, the committee released House Report 102-857, "The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report by the Committee on the Judiciary." The report agreed with Bankruptcy Judge [[George Francis Bason Jr.]]'s 1987 finding that PROMIS had been stolen "tainted by fraud, deceit and overreaching," and stated that "high government officials were involved" in a scheme to distribute PROMIS internationally "to provide financial gain and to further intelligence and foreign policy objectives." The report named Attorneys General [[Edwin Meese]] and [[Richard Thornburgh]] as having "blocked or restricted congressional inquiries into the matter, ignored the findings of two courts and refused to ask for the appointment of an independent counsel." It recommended both a negotiated settlement of INSLAW's damage claims and the appointment of a special prosecutor. Brooks had a contentious running confrontation with Thornburgh throughout the investigation: Thornburgh refused to produce subpoenaed DOJ documents, refused to testify before the committee, and asserted litigation privilege over documents central to the case. Brooks publicly accused the department of systematically denying the committee "access to critical documents."[^2] No subsequent Congress took up the INSLAW matter at the committee level. Brooks lost his seat in the November 1994 Republican wave election, ending the investigation before any follow-up proceedings could be launched.[^1] ### Iran-Contra Hearings During Oliver North's congressional testimony in July 1987, Brooks asked North whether he had helped develop a plan, reportedly code-named REX-84, to suspend the U.S. Constitution and authorize military detention of civilians in the event of a domestic emergency. The question was immediately shut down by joint committee chairman [[Daniel Inouye]], who ruled the matter outside the scope of the Iran-Contra inquiry. The exchange remains one of the few congressional moments in which the alleged continuity-of-government planning was raised in open hearing.[^2] ### Footnotes [^1]: "Brooks, Jack Bascom." Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives; "Jack Brooks, Father of Modern Procurement, Dies at 89." *Nextgov/FCW*, December 2012. [^2]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. *The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report.* House Report 102-857, 102nd Congress, 2nd Session, September 10, 1992.