Another MAGA kook planning to hijack the US House and there’s nothng Mike Johnson can do about it. (That’s assuming he wants to.) The aptly named Ann Paulina Luna from Florida is going to force a vote to have the House sergeant at arms to take Merrick Garland into custody. Seriously:
“It is imperative that Congress uses its inherent contempt powers and instructs the Sergeant at Arms to bring Attorney General Garland to the House for questioning and compel him to produce the requested evidence,” Luna wrote to her colleagues in a letter on Monday.
“This power is not a mere formality, but a vital tool for us to carry out our legislative responsibilities. It is not enough to issue a subpoena; we must also have the power to enforce it,” she added in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO.
Inherent contempt hasn’t been used in 90 years. But whatever.
Get a load of this:
Luna’s resolution requires that Garland be brought “before the bar of the House of Representatives” to answer questions and that he be kept “in custody to await the further order of the House of Representatives.” One GOP lawmaker questioned, under the scenario, where the House would hold Garland and if there was actually a much-rumored Capitol jail.
There isn’t, to be clear. But the Capitol Police have holding facilities at their headquarters — and Luna noted in her letter they could also hold him in the Capitol building itself.
That’s right. She wants to have the Attorney general arrested and held in the Capitol to “await the further order of the House of Representatives.” Will they bring out their gallows?
It would bring the House to a complete halt (which may not be a bad thing actually.)
Experts on House process and procedure warn that an inherent contempt vote could trigger months and months of deliberations, from hashing out separation of powers authorities governing the initial arrest to a makeshift trial on the House floor. Adding in another curveball, Garland has a security detail due to his attorney general title, and it’s unclear how bringing a sitting Cabinet official into custody would play out, particularly given Biden’s assertion of executive privilege.
“Inherent contempt has been described as ‘unseemly,’ cumbersome, time-consuming, and relatively ineffective, especially for a modern Congress with a heavy legislative workload that would be interrupted by a trial at the bar,” according to a report on the process and history by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
I’m surprised Marge doesn’t want a piece of this.
Luna is indeed a lunatic. But she isn’t alone. The MAGA bubble has dozens of them convinced that they have a Trump-given right to punish anyone who doesn’t do exactly what they want them to. And then they wail like tired toddlers when anyone tries to hold them to account for anything.