and does that mean you have some you do think that they re conducting themselves properly here or you perhaps wouldn t have even voted yes on bannon? i think the ultimate thing to look at here is what precedent is being set and how that could be used in the future. with steve bannon, it was very clear congress has the prerogative to issue subpoenas and it has to have the contempt power in order for that subpoena to have any weight, and steve bannon flat out rejected any cooperation and told congress to pound sand, and so i held him in contempt and voted in support of that. when it came to mark meadows, he had been cooperating with the committee. while he should have appeared in order to assert executive privilege. and there are two lawsuits going trump v thompson and meadows v pelosi, et al to determine the lirmts of the executive privilege that can be invoked, at the end of the day he was cooperating, at least in some degree.
privilege, lots to talk about what is privileged and including documents that aren t. they will probably seek to stall. it will be interesting to see what the january 6th committee does here referring more to the justice department i think is not going to be a quick solution. filing their own civil lawsuit is not likely to move quickly and glen raises on interesting point, use it or lose it. they have inherent contempt power. it s time to flex muscles and use that power to enforce their subpoenas that. no kidding. including against former vice president. let s talk about vice president mike pence. rachel maddow did a great job of going through the bland opening the envelope at the oscars, you don t decide who won, you are just reading it. he said basically there is only
inherent contempt power. remember, all this is bouncing through garland from the committee because garland won t use the biggest tool in his shed, which is the fbi. these people are not denying fbi subpoenas because if you deny an fbi subpoena, you sit in jail while they sort it out. but merrick garland has not sicked the fbi on them. that s fair and it goes to whether they view the january 6th case as a trespassing case with a couple of proud boys or whether they view it as a coordinated plan to be investigated, not to be prejudged, that may have reached political elites in the republican party or the white house. emily. i was just thinking about the difference between the two branches. so congress does have the power to enforce a contempt citation on its own but it hasn t in such
congress may switch from the democrats leading this investigation to republicans who would want to stone wall it. i am absolutely concerned. which is why i have legislation that will allow the house of representatives to execute inherent contempt power. it s a power the supreme court has upheld. we can use it to find witnesses or put them in confinement. it s time we use that because right now, the trial for steve bannon for example was not set until august. for mark meadows, probably further. and when he can delay enforcement subpoenas that long and render them meaningless. i highly urge the house legal counsel to reverse course because their strategy has not worked. congressional subpoenas have been rendered largely meaningless. let me give you two examples mentioned by the committee. one text in a lawmaker unnamed to meadows reads pence as president of the senate should
suspect they ll evaluate this in less than 22 days and find that mark meadows should be prosecuted for criminal contempt. as you say, there are a couple other options available. congress could try and enforce the subpoena on its own with its inherent contempt power. that s, again, something that it hasn t used in a long, long time, but it does have that available. and indeed, the justice department can try or congress can try to enforce the subpoena in federal court civilly, say, look, we re going to leave criminal sanctions for another day. we re not sure we re going to do there but right now, we re going to federal court to say, you ve got to give us this information. this information is vital. it s about, you know, what happened on january 6th during an armed attack on our capitol. yeah, and it seems to me the degree of stupid toe with which mark meadows is trying to sell a book but at the same time saying, i can t talk about what i wrote in the book. meanwhile, i ve handed over d