Congress Has the Power to Arrest, Imprison Those Who Defy Subpoenas

While the criminal gang of hoodlums and thieves known throughout the underworld as the "Bush Administration" express their literal contempt of Congress by claiming that the legal offices held by some of its members renders the gang immune to prosecution or even subpoena, the fact remains that Congress has the legal power and the legal resources to arrest and detain gang members who defy congressional orders to testify before congressional committees:

Yet under historic and undisturbed law, Congress can enforce its own orders against recalcitrant witnesses without involving the executive branch and without leaving open the possibility of presidential pardon.

And a Supreme Court majority would find it hard to object in the face of two entrenched legal principles.

That's Prof. Frank Askin, who teaches at the Rutgers University School of Law and is director of the Rutgers Constitutional Litigation Clinic, writing an op-ed in the Washington Post.

Askin reminds us that:

• Apart from requesting assistance from the US Attorney to prosecute those who defy Congressional subpoenas for contempt of Congress, the sargeants-at-arms of both the House of representatives and the Senate have the lawful power to arrest and detain those who defy those subpoenas.
• This power has been upheld again and again by the Supreme Court.
• The power of pardon constitutionally alotted to whomever holds the office of President of the United States does not extend to civil contempt. The President has no lawful authority to compel the release of a person arrested by Congress for defying a Congressional subpoena.

It is high time that Congress used this lawful power to enforce its subpoenas of those gangsters who infest the Executive Branch.

(via David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo)