The sting of a subpoena

TFG is feeling it, the lil' minx

For Americans who’ve been asking how long will the criminal behavior of TFG go unpunished, on Thursday the Jan. 6th Select Committee tossed out a small bone.

The committee voted to subpoena Trump, a legal request he most likely will ignore, though if any of the rest of us declined to answer a subpoena, the result would be a fine or even imprisonment. Here are some options for the committee when the inevitable happens, and Trump tries to sidestep the law (from CNN Politics):

1) They can tell the House or Senate sergeant-at-arms to detain or imprison the person in contempt until he or she honors congressional demands. This is called “inherent contempt.” But it’s extremely rare and hasn’t happened in modern times.

2) Congress can vote on criminal contempt, then make a referral to the executive branch – headed by the President – to try to get the person criminally prosecuted. A month or more jail sentence is a possibility if a witness won’t comply, under the law. This is the approach members of Congress have indicated publicly they’d want to pursue. It’s unclear how quickly this route would move, and how the Biden Justice Department would respond to a contempt referral from the Democrats in the House.

3) Congress can ask the judicial branch to enforce a congressional subpoena. In other words, Congress can seek a federal court’s civil judgment saying the person is legally obligated to comply with the subpoena. During the Trump presidency, the House tried this approach many times, but the court process moved so slowly it took months or even years for standoffs to resolve. Some, like a House subpoena for Trump’s IRS returns, still linger before a trial judge.

All of this will be a slow and laborious process, and TFG is a master at using the courts to run roughshod over propriety. He is lawsuit-happy, even when he doesn’t entirely understand lawsuits. Case in point? From Maggie Haberman’s new book, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America,” Trump’s reaction to one of his impeachments was this: He was going to sue Congress.

As if.

The man believes the way around his legal troubles as president is to sue somebody, anybody, and that is precisely how he’s run his multiple businesses into the ground. I shall pray, though, that there is a time limit on how much this guy can obstruct justice. I shall pray, in fact, for justice.

We saw amazing video on Thursday, but I share the below as a reminder of precisely what all this is for. Thank you, Speaker Pelosi. Thank you, members of the Select Committee.