table during the trump administration, of course, because trump was basically chose his own people in the justice department. that s how the tables have turned a bit, but i must say, the democrats in part have themselves to blame for not moving on some subpoenas that were ignored during the trump administration. john bolton in the first impeachment proceedings, for example, and then many in the second impeachment proceedings, so the contempt power has been vastly diluted but the issue in this moment is we just have to think, victor, if donald trump gets in office again, there will not be any mike pences or pat cipollones or jefferey rosens that are going to push back. it will be a full lockdown and the department of justice authority does not extend to ignoring election results and that s where chuck grassley is flatout wrong. we heard from stephanie grisham earlier this week if former president trump is elected again, she expects the january 6th crowd will be making up the staffin
criminal referral to the department of justice, because this will be a plain criminal contempt if they just openly defy it. the problem is the doj policy, and even an loc opinion says we won t exercise contempt power, we won t take a referral if it s for a former or current executive branch official. you can see why they re thinking of the long run, but the short term consequences are potential. other two options, inherent power of the senate, people are talking about it, hasn t been used for 100 years and would still land them in court, or civil contempt, which is what they tried in the trump years. that makes them run right to court also and gives the 18-month to two-year delay and succeeded at the foiled efforts during the impeachment. there is a midterm coming up,
so what happens if they still don t testify? well, when it comes to sitting members of congress, they could potentially be called up before the ethics committee, or congress could ask the justice department to prosecute any subpoena dodgers with what s called contempt of congress, which is a crime. in theory, congress could also use what s known as inherent contempt power, and have the sergeant at arms actually make arrests. now, that actually used to be pretty common up until the 1930s. now, whether dems in charge of the committee would actually exercise that power, that s another story. so far, they refuse to even definitively say they will issue subpoenas. i ve asked right on this show. and it leaves unanswered one very important question about the republicans. i would support subpoenas to anybody that can shed light on that. if that s the leader, that s the leader. if anybody is scared of this investigation, i ask you one question, what are you afraid
listening, neal. i can imagine some screaming things towards the television because you can t say on television because it sounds like bs. it is happening in court. walk us through what it means when people who followed what they thought trump wanted them to do are now saying this should be their get-out-of-jail-free card. i want to say something about what melissa said that is very important. there s two ways congress can enforce the subpoena, one is the 192 process going to courts. the other is they have an inherent contempt power on their own. they can do it without the courts whatsoever. particularly when it s intrabranch, a dispute only within the congress as opposed to congress and the executive, that s another path they should think about seriously. with respect to your question about the january 6th insurrectionists, they re invoking the public authority defense, the idea that trump made us do it. we thought we were following his orders. that s a really hard defense in the la
January 29, 2021
With the 117th Congress now fully seated, the private sector is set to face greater scrutiny from the Legislative Branch than it has in a decade, as Democrats regain control of both chambers of Congress and the presidency for the first time since 2010. Democrats are assuming unitary control as a number of hot-button issues involving private sector entities are front and center in the public discourse many of which are drawing bipartisan interest including COVID-19 relief spending, climate change, healthcare and prescription drug costs, cybersecurity breaches, and regulation of big technology companies. And, because Democratic committee chairs are likely to spend significantly less time investigating the Executive Branch under a Biden Administration, additional staff resources will be deployed on the private sector, which should expect the spotlight to be even brighter.