Wilkinson v. United States, 365 U.S. 399 (1961), was a court case during the McCarthy Era in which the petitioner, Frank Wilkinson, an administrator with the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, challenged his conviction under 2 U.S.C.

The petitioner was indeed summoned to testify before a Subcommittee of the House of Representatives' Un-American Activities Committee, which was investigating alleged Communist infiltration into basic industries and Communist Party propaganda activities.

The petitioner refused to answer a question as to whether he was a member of the Communist Party, contending that the Subcommittee lacked legal authority to interrogate him and that its questioning violated his First Amendment rights.

[1] The Court also, on February 27, 1961, denied Braden v. United States, a companion case appealing a similar 2 U.S.C.

The underlying activities of the FBI and government agencies later resulted in a case, Wilkinson v. FBI,[2] in which it was revealed that the FBI believed the witness that provided the assertion of Wilkinson's association with the Communist Party was "unreliable and emotionally unstable.