U.S. Attorney General William Barr faces the prospect on Wednesday of a vote by ...
- U.S. Attorney General William Barr faces the prospect on Wednesday of a vote by a U.S. House committee to hold him in “contempt of Congress.” What does that mean?
Democrats in the House of Representatives are threatening to use it on multiple fronts, including against Barr for ignoring a subpoena issued by the House Judiciary Committee seeking an unredacted version of the Mueller report on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and President Donald Trump.
Congress’ power to issue subpoenas, while broad, is not unlimited. The high court has said Congress is not a law enforcement agency, and cannot investigate someone purely to expose wrongdoing or damaging information about them for political gain. A subpoena must potentially further some “legitimate legislative purpose,” the court has said.If lawmakers want to punish someone who ignores a congressional subpoena they typically first hold the offender “in contempt of Congress,” legal experts said.
In 1927, the high court said the Senate acted lawfully in sending its deputy sergeant-at-arms to Ohio to arrest and detain the brother of the then-attorney general, who had refused to testify about a bribery scheme known as the Teapot Dome scandal. But this option is also unlikely to be pursued, at least when it comes to subpoenas against executive branch officials, given that federal prosecutors are part of the branch’s Justice Department.
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