motorcarman
Compulsive Collector
I say LOCK HER UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Speaker Paul Ryan said Wednesday he is willing to hold former FBI attorney Lisa Page in contempt of Congress if she continues defying a congressional subpoena to answer questions about anti-Donald Trump text message exchanges.
“I am very disturbed by this,” Ryan told reporters at a news conference. “Congressional subpoenas for testimony are not optional. ... She was a part of a mess that they have uncovered over at DOJ. She has an obligation to come testify.”
Ryan later added: “If she wants to come plead the Fifth, that’s her choice. But a subpoena to testify before Congress is not optional. It’s mandatory. She needs to comply.”
Congress should invoke Inherent Contempt.
Inherent contempt. From the Republic’s earliest days, Congress has had the right to hold recalcitrant witnesses in contempt — and even imprison them — all by itself. In 1795, shortly after the Constitution was ratified, the House ordered its sergeant at arms to arrest and detain two men accused of trying to bribe members of Congress. The House held a trial and convicted one of them.
In 1821, the Supreme Court upheld Congress’s right to hold people in contempt and imprison them. Without this power, the court ruled, Congress would “be exposed to every indignity and interruption, that rudeness, caprice, or even conspiracy, may mediate against it.” Later, in a 1927 case arising from the Teapot Dome scandal, the court upheld the Senate’s arrest of the brother of a former attorney general — carried out in Ohio by the deputy sergeant at arms — for ignoring a subpoena to testify.
Speaker Paul Ryan said Wednesday he is willing to hold former FBI attorney Lisa Page in contempt of Congress if she continues defying a congressional subpoena to answer questions about anti-Donald Trump text message exchanges.
“I am very disturbed by this,” Ryan told reporters at a news conference. “Congressional subpoenas for testimony are not optional. ... She was a part of a mess that they have uncovered over at DOJ. She has an obligation to come testify.”
Ryan later added: “If she wants to come plead the Fifth, that’s her choice. But a subpoena to testify before Congress is not optional. It’s mandatory. She needs to comply.”
Congress should invoke Inherent Contempt.
Inherent contempt. From the Republic’s earliest days, Congress has had the right to hold recalcitrant witnesses in contempt — and even imprison them — all by itself. In 1795, shortly after the Constitution was ratified, the House ordered its sergeant at arms to arrest and detain two men accused of trying to bribe members of Congress. The House held a trial and convicted one of them.
In 1821, the Supreme Court upheld Congress’s right to hold people in contempt and imprison them. Without this power, the court ruled, Congress would “be exposed to every indignity and interruption, that rudeness, caprice, or even conspiracy, may mediate against it.” Later, in a 1927 case arising from the Teapot Dome scandal, the court upheld the Senate’s arrest of the brother of a former attorney general — carried out in Ohio by the deputy sergeant at arms — for ignoring a subpoena to testify.