” Pentagon Papers case is unambiguous in this matter. The House can move to expel him with a 2/3 concurrence. But he can’t be prosecuted, in fact he can’t even be investigated.”
A completely inaccurate assertion.
The Pentagon Papers case had nothing to do with a Congressman. Daniel Ellsberg was an employee of Rand corp. The only reason he was not imprisoned is because DOJ dropped charges after it was discovered there was a great deal of prosecutorial misconduct.
Multiple members of Congress have been charged with crimes, prosecuted and imprisoned. They are in no way immune to the Espionage Act.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers
The classifed Pentagon Papers were entered into the record by Sen. Gravel in 1971. In response, the DOJ impaneled a grand jury to investigate and issued a subpoena for an aide to the Senator. In a 5-4 opinion the Supreme Court dismissed the subpoena finding that the Speech and Debate clause of the constitution protected the Senator from criminal or civil liability and from questioning elsewhere than in the Senate, with respect to the events occurring at the subcommittee hearing at which the Pentagon Papers were published. The entire review process that we are currently discussing was instituted by law in response to the Gavel episode.