Enough. The Trump administration is advising its cabinet and governmental officials to ignore Congressional subpoenas—a crime. It is at war with Congress and is making the People irrelevant in the midst of an impeachment inquiry.
Former U.S. Attorney and frequent MSNBC contributor Glen Kirshner:
Lawmakers have responded [to Republican obstruction of Congress] with an impotent combination of complaining and dithering. But as Congress moves from issuing subpoenas in furtherance of oversight of the executive branch to issuing subpoenas expressly in furtherance of a presidential impeachment inquiry, it’s time for Congress to use the most aggressive arrow in its quiver: the power of inherent contempt…
...In the 1821 case of Anderson v. Dunn, the court said, Congress’ power to “hold someone in contempt is essential to ensure that Congress is not exposed to every indignity that rudeness, caprice or even conspiracy may make against it.”
Speaker Pelosi has the power to place a check on Ambassador Sondland’s disrespect: first, fine him.
Under inherent contempt, Congress could fine people who aren’t cooperating with them today. At the top of their list for any of these punishments might be the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, who is withholding a whistleblower complaint about the president, or former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who complied with a subpoena but mocked Congress once there….
...The most common tactic for compelling someone to speak to Congress is to subpoena them. It’s a crime not to comply with a subpoena issued by a congressional body, punishable by “a substantial fine and imprisonment for up to one year,” according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
If lawmakers find someone in contempt of Congress for not cooperating with a subpoena, it’s the executive branch’s duty to charge one of its own allies with a crime. Congress can also sue people (as they are with former White House counsel Donald McGahn, a key witness in the report by former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III). But that can take months to come to a conclusion, and the threat of a lawsuit hasn’t compelled any other Trump allies to testify.
Again, “It’s the executive branch’s duty to charge one of its own allies with a crime.” That will never happen because the Trump administration, and Republicans in Congress, are lawless.
Jail him if he continues to ignore the subpoena—yes, there are risks, but our country is in mortal peril. Democrats should respond in a proportional way.
Former U.S. Attorney Glen Kirshner explains the danger of not using inherent contempt:
Thus far, Congress has declined to send the sergeant at arms to arrest witnesses who thumb their nose at lawfully issued subpoenas. Perhaps this is because Congress is attempting to give the administration enough rope to tie itself in knots. That legal strategy, if it is in fact a Democratic strategy, would go something like this: Each time an administration official or other Trump loyalist refuses to comply with a Congressional subpoena, Congress is documenting that information and building a case for the courts. Lawyers can then argue that such behavior is indicative of a cover-up being orchestrated by the White House to stonewall congressional investigations. Democrats understandably thinks this puts them in the best posture to win future court battles; it is what lawyers call perfecting a litigation position.
The problem is that perfecting litigation positions can result in lengthy delays and give the perception of a lack of zeal and determination to fight for justice. For decades, I worked in a professional world where I saw some lawyers perfect their litigation positions to death.
(Italics and bold mine)
Read the following and then think about where we are as a republic: it will likely be gone late next year if Congress, and everyday Americans, don’t act.
The most recent time Congress flexed its jailing muscles actually ended up weakening it. In 1916, Congress arrested the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York after a contempt charge that looked very much like a case of political retaliation. (The attorney, H. Snowden Marshall, had headed an investigation that led to the indictment of a congressman.) When Marshall was arrested, he appealed his case all the way to the Supreme Court and won. The case, Marshall v. Gordon, ended up narrowing Congress’s arresting power to only instances in which the witness is preventing or obstructing Congress’s job.
Some House lawmakers today argue that Trump officials are doing exactly that, blocking Congress’s inherent oversight duties.
Inherent contempt is proportional to the crime that is being committed. It is also timely. It is also appropriate: the US Supreme Court decision cited above upheld the use of inherent contempt to arrest someone who is obstructing Congress’ ability to get to the truth, ie obstructing justice. This is what every Republican official is doing when they ignore a Congressional subpoena.
It would not be “unseemly”, it would not be “over the top”. It would show the American people that Democrats will do what needs to be done to protect the Constitution, which every government official has sworn to protect and uphold. Fine Ambassador and then if he still doesn’t comply with the Congressional subpoena, throw his butt in jail until he does.
Call your Reps and tell them you want them to “use Inherent Contempt for Ambassador Sondland and every other official who commits the crime of ignoring a Congressional subpoena”—Capitol Switchboard—202-224-2131.
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More about inherent contempt:
Although these powers are not directly stated in the Constitution, the Supreme Court has ruled on multiple occasions that they are implicit as an essential legislative power held by Congress.
Justice Willis Van Devanter made perhaps the most famous statement of these powers in McGrain v. Daugherty, a 1927 Supreme Court decision about Mally S. Daugherty, the brother of former Attorney General Harry Daugherty. A select Senate committee issued a subpoena for Daugherty to testify and to also surrender records from an Ohio bank. When Daugherty refused to comply after a second subpoena, the Senate passed a resolution issuing a warrant and authorizing a Senate deputy to take Daugherty into custody. Daugherty filed a habeas petition against his detention. A lower court ruled that the Senate exceeded its powers by detaining Daugherty, freeing him. However, the Supreme Court upheld his conviction, holding that under the Constitution, Congress has the power to compel witnesses and testimony “to obtain information in aid of the legislative function.”
“Each house of Congress has power, through its own process, to compel a private individual to appear before it or one of its committees and give testimony needed to enable it efficiently to exercise a legislative function belonging to it under the Constitution,” Van Devanter said. “This has support in long practice of the houses separately, and in repeated Acts of Congress, all amounting to a practical construction of the Constitution.”