Prediction: Congress issues various subpoenas. Trump says go f*** yourself. Congress invokes Inherent Contempt. It's far quicker than litigating, and it's 100% legal for the Democratic-held House to arrest those in contempt.
Gonna get ugly.
Inherent contempt[edit]
Under this process, the procedure for holding a person in contempt involves only the chamber concerned. Following a contempt citation, the person cited is arrested by the
Sergeant-at-Arms for the House or
Senate, brought to the floor of the chamber, held to answer charges by the presiding officer, and then subjected to punishment as the chamber may dictate (usually imprisonment for punishment, imprisonment for coercion, or release from the contempt citation).
[10]
Concerned with the time-consuming nature of a contempt proceeding and the inability to extend punishment further than the session of the Congress concerned (under Supreme Court rulings), Congress created a statutory process in 1857. While Congress retains its "inherent contempt" authority and may exercise it at any time, this inherent contempt process was last used by the Senate in 1934, in a Senate investigation of airlines and the
U.S. Postmaster. After a one-week trial on the Senate floor (presided over by
Vice President John Nance Garner, in his capacity as Senate President),
William P. MacCracken, Jr., a lawyer and former Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Aeronautics who was charged with allowing clients to remove or rip up subpoenaed documents, was found guilty and sentenced to 10 days imprisonment.
[11]
MacCracken filed a petition of
habeas corpus in federal courts to overturn his arrest, but after litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Congress had acted constitutionally, and denied the petition in the case
Jurney v. MacCracken.
[12][13]
Presidential pardons appear not to apply to a civil contempt procedure such as the above, since it is not an "offense against the United States" or against "the dignity of public authority."
[14]
