congressional investigations. but what has changed, of course, and what is different now is that the department of justice is obviously you have an attorney general at the head of the department of justice who i think cares a great deal about co-equal branches of government, separation of powers an ebb suring the constitutional prerogatives of the congress are respected. at the end of the day if witnesses can defy subpoenas without consequence, then congressional oversight really no longer exists and it s hard to make the case congress is a co-equal branch of government in that circumstance. i take very seriously the select committee s language that was in the release today with respect to criminal contempt of congress, a referral to the department of justice. time will tell as to whether or not the department of justice under attorney general garland will ultimately implement that referral and pursue it. but i and many of my colleagues also believe we shouldn t wait for the departme
congress can and should do. what does that look like? so inherent contempt powers of the congress have always existed under your constitution. the powers have been largely dormant for the better part of the last 90 years. myself, ted lieu, val demings, a group of us on the house judiciary committee who again experienced the stonewalling of the trump administration first happened a year and a half ago proposed changing our rules to codify and authorize the use of inherent contempt. inherent contempt would function very similar to the way in which criminal contempt of congress functions if that referral is implemented. so a long-winded way of saying it would include fines, monetary penalties. in the past inherent contempt has been used by the congress in the senate and house with penalties of imprisonment as well. so congress is not powerless. it would not require the passage of the resolution in the senate and only require a majority vote in the house of representatives. so we think
so this is him from his memo to nixon saying people are lazy. with television, you just sit, watch, listen. the thinking is done for you. he had tremendous contempt for his audience. he kept it his whole life in the same way donald trump does and he had it in the one meeting you ever had with him. he did. he was like our viewers don t even want to know somebody like you exists. but he took a meeting with me and my bosses at salon because he was kind of curious. i mean he wanted to know that we existed and who we were. but it was just so amazingly cynical. it was shocking how just on top of the world he was and just convinced that we would never get through to his audience and he would never put us through to his audience. and i still feel to this day
in other words, if we have crimes that took place that the doj didn t know about we will send it to them. for subpoenas, we have all of the same authority that a court would have to issue subpoenas. so if you get one of these subpoenas that is not an optional thing. that is legally mandatory and we can coerce your cooperation through criminal contempt or civil contempt or what s called the powers of congress where we can call people before congress and find them and use our own sanctions and that hasn t been done for a long time, but i don t think anybody should be testing our patience at this point. what about donald trump testing it? what about donald trump saying this is executive privilege and his group of people attempting to stop you getting information or testimony. well, legally, i think it
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