Inherent Contempt...on Randi Rhodes

A caller just went over the process for arresting Harriet Myers if she fails to show before congress tomorrow.Inherent Contempt...It calls for an immediate arrest and brought before the committee and then jailed until she talks.....


If the dems have any backbone and want to show respect for the law they will do this without question tomorrow.....Should we hold our breathes????

i'm not wild about extra-judicial arrests, whether it's the President doing it, or the Congress.

MIers refusal to appear.

EDIT: At the very least, it's good to have a feel for a timeline, between when a good idea is broached, to when the good idea will receive attention from the public.

...now?

...ordering her not to appear. So if she follows the order and fails to appear can she be compelled to appear and testify? If not, can she then be arrested for Contempt of Congress and placed in jail until she agrees to testify?

then she'll have broken the law and, presumably, a warrant will be issued for her arrest.

Oversight Manual, key pages are pdf 42/43:

(a) Inherent Contempt

Under the inherent contempt power, the individual is brought before the House
or Senate by the Sergeant-at-Arms, tried at the bar of the body, and can be
imprisoned. The purpose of the imprisonment or other sanction may be either
punitive or coercive. Thus, the witness can be imprisoned for a specified period of
time as punishment, or for an indefinite period (but not, at least in the case of the
House, beyond the adjournment of a session of the Congress) until he agrees to
comply. The inherent contempt power has been recognized by the Supreme Court
as inextricably related to Congress’s constitutionally-based power to investigate.20
Between 1795 and 1934 the House and Senate utilized the inherent contempt power
over 85 times, in most instances to obtain (successfully) testimony and/or documents.
The inherent contempt power has not been exercised by either House in over 70
years. This appears to be because it has been considered too cumbersome and timeconsuming
to hold contempt trials at the bar of the offended chamber. Moreover,
some have argued that the procedure is ineffective because punishment can not
extend beyond Congress’s adjournment date.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL30240.pdf

...as Harriet Meyers would be reluctant to cool her heels in jail for one night let alone 520 nights. Even if Shrub* commutes her jail term, that would be another nail in Bush's coffin and an additional charge for impeachment. IMHO congress should go for it!

Inherent Contempt

Court as within the right of Congress, the ruling was in 1937 I believe, so there is precedent on the books already.

a thing. The litany is getting old.

and, to this moment, there has been no retraction on this. I suspect there is a flurry of activity going on now that Conyers has spelled Inherent Contempt instead of the expected Statutory Contempt of Congress.

Al Qaeda comin' to git yeh!

plastic on my windows, etc.

I'm enjoying her agoney and the painful twisted motions of Bush as he tries to escape Justice.

He's got spirit for a walking dead duck, doesn't he? Imagine--He ORDERED a FORMER employee to show contempt of congress, and not answer questions about areas covered by executive privilege over a matter he claims to have nothing to do with?

Does that sound like a legal gambit that will win?

tested in the USSC but there is no stopping, imo, the bush cabal from trying to get the question before the USSC again.

Conyer's committee will have to put a resolution before the committee to invoke this right, the committee would vote on it and, if it passes, it goes before the House for a full vote, it seems a simple majority vote will carry it.

bush wants the question of Executive Privilege before the courts in order to stall and this move by them is part of it. They are daring the Democrats to act and they will continue to ramp up the confrontation until they do, imo.

Will Congress actually act if the resolution is passed and do this:

"the individual is brought before the House or Senate by the Sergeant-at-Arms, tried at the bar of the body, and can be imprisoned."

Will the WH take the chance that Congress will do this to Miers or will they, at the last minute, negotiate something wrt her appearance.

Historically, it has been successful, when used, to get the testimony Congress wanted from the individual, that's encouraging, imo.