The Trump administration is expressing legal doubt about one tool some House Democrats have suggested they might wield to try to force testimony from uncooperative witnesses: the power to levy fines.
Despite calls from some liberal activists for the jailing of witnesses who have declined to cooperate with the impeachment probe, House Democrats have shown no interest in trying to assert their historical authority to have individuals arrested for contempt of Congress.
However, some Democratic lawmakers have said the House could take what might be viewed as a less drastic step and use so-called “inherent contempt” to impose financial penalties on those who refuse to testify or hand over documents.
In a court filing Wednesday in a lawsuit filed by former Trump deputy national security adviser Charles Kupperman, Justice Department lawyers said the threat of such fines is too remote and uncertain to allow Kupperman to proceed with his lawsuit testing the validity of a since-withdrawn subpoena from the House Intelligence Committee.
“This argument cannot be taken seriously,” Justice Department attorneys wrote. “Dr. Kupperman does not face a credible threat of being the first person in American history fined under the supposed inherent contempt authority that he attributes to the House.”
“The House’s attempted resort to monetary fines under a theory of inherent contempt is even more implausible than the House’s attempted use of the Sergeant-at-Arms to arrest and imprison him,” the DOJ lawyers continued. “The Supreme Court has never decided whether Congress even has inherent authority to enforce its subpoenas with monetary fines.”
The Trump administration’s brief also questions how Congress could actually lay its hands on Kupperman’s funds even if some sort of fine was decreed.
“Unlike detention, which the Sergeant-of-Arms might be able to implement, Congress has no obvious mechanism to seize Dr. Kupperman’s property,” the Justice Department lawyers wrote.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said publicly in May that Democrats were considering the possibility of $25,000-a-day fines against witnesses who refused to cooperate with the impeachment probe.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also privately discussed the option with colleagues that same month.
But a brief House lawyers filed earlier Wednesday night in the same suit describes the issue of fines as a non-starter — at least with respect to Kupperman. House attorneys say such fines would require a series of steps that the House has already sworn off in his case.
“None of these things is going to happen,” the lawyers for the House wrote. “The House Defendants have committed to Kupperman and this Court both that they will not reissue the subpoena to Kupperman and that they will not initiate inherent contempt proceedings against Kupperman for failure to comply with the withdrawn subpoena. Simply put, the Sergeant-at-Arms will not be called upon to take any action against Kupperman.”
The Justice Department devotes much of its new brief in the Kupperman case to arguments challenging another decision reached by a judge last month on a House-filed lawsuit to enforce a subpoena issued to former Trump White House Counsel Don McGahn.
In that case, U.S. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson rejected arguments that McGahn was immune from having to appear because of his role as a senior presidential adviser.
An appeal in that case is pending at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
"fine" - Google News
December 05, 2019 at 11:48AM
https://ift.tt/365vyLu
Justice Department scoffs at House’s ability to fine witnesses - Politico
"fine" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2NyjnPq
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
No comments:
Post a Comment