Saturday, October 09, 2021

But On TeeVee The Bad Guys Are In Prison By The End Of The Hour!

Everything is gathered under one roof at the article. I'm tired of posting long Twitter threads today.  Here is one tweet to nutshell it all: Of course most of the responses are of this order: "ASAP" meaning basically "by nightfall" or "10 minutes ago," whichever comes first.

It works that way on the TeeVee, why doesn't it work that way in real life?

Wilson's tweets are based on phone calls he says he's had proving the Committee has no intention of enforcing any subpoenas, a claim that flies in the face of all the public statements the Committee has made so far.  So I'm inclined to believe the Committee until proven otherwise.

As for those subpoenas, they can't be acted upon until the date set for the appearance comes and goes with no compliance. A subpoena for appearance of a witness is issued as to time and place.  If the court issues a subpoena for apperance at a hearing, nothing happens until the hearing comes and goes and the witness fails to appear.  The witness can call the judge up and say she's not coming; it doesn't matter.  If the witness fails to show at the hearing, the court doesn't send out the police with orders to grab the witness and drag them bodily into the courtroom while the hearing waits.  The court may issue a contempt order, even a bench warrant.  But they don't wait for the witness to be dragged into the courtroom, and they don't do anything until the time and place of the subpoena have proven the witness a no-show.

The same applies for subpoenaed documents. Orders of arrest are not automatically issued or acted on the moment the documents are late.

Bannon’s failure to deliver documents can trigger consequences.  But this is not TeeVee; the next scene is not armed federal agents beating down doors and dragging Bannon away in chains. "Inherent contempt" of Congress can bypass the judicial system the way a criminal contempt order does, but it still doesn't happen because the Committee chair says "Drag his ass in here!" Even that will take a vote of the majority of the House. This doesn't mean Bannon won and the Committee lost.  Besides, the Committee has a DOJ likely to assist rather than resist enforcing subpoeanas, and while that can't happen while the cameras roll, it can happen far more quickly than after November, 2022.  If Bannon (or more likely Trump, on his “executive privilege” claims) forces the DOJ to court, they can get hearings expedited all the way up to the Supremes. Nothing in these subpoenas (of witnesses or documents) is anything close to the issues Nixon raised in '73, and those cases moved to the Supreme Court very quickly, which also ruled very quickly.  Trump's hopes of delaying this until the GOP wins the House in 2022 (if it does) are as based in law and fact as his claims of electoral fraud undoing the election results.

According to this HuffPost article, the Committee is going to refer all refusals to the DOJ for enforcement, which is the right thing to do. Trump’s executive privilege arguments are groundless and will probably face the same fate as his election challenges. Significantly, the Biden Administration has waived all claims of privilege as to these documents and witnesses. That puts all the eggs in one basket 🧺. Which means one case before the courts, not one case per witness or documents. This could be over very quickly.

In the meantime, everybody needs to calm down and stop acting like Trump on a bender.  He thought the laws should punish his enemies instanter, too.  I thought we were all better than that?
Yeah, why aren’t they all buried under the jail yet? Are ya waiting ‘til Monday?!? Ain’t you gonna ‘rest ‘em all? An’ throw away the key?
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