They lost their shit decades before that. I have no idea why people seem to remember a formerly rational Republican party. I think people were just younger and have a rosy recollection of politicians who served before we formed a coherent political worldview.
TBF, they lost their collective minds over the Clintons, too. Bill was largely a right-leaning centrist but Hillary has a tendency to speak her mind (shock! horror! she's not some decorative arm piece? Who the hell does she think she is, anyway?) Also, some people were proclaiming him to be the "first black President" and that alone probably drove them crazier.
President Biden had classified documents when he wasn't president. This is a no no. A special counsel was created to investigate and see if he broke the law (which requires showing a level of intent). The special counsel interviewed Biden and afterwards put out a report and was like "we shouldn't procecute this case, the jury would see him as a forgetful old grandpa" (this is not a real quote).
Now congressional Republicans want the justice department to release the audio of the interview. They say they want this to find evidence of criminal activity (as if the justice department wasn't doing the same thing?) And Merrick Garland is refusing under the reasoning that it wouldn't serve a purpose, and disclosing information on someone who hasn't committed a crime, you are going to prosecute, is bad. Imagine if the government did that to all people they didn't like, start an investigation, get a bunch of dirt, and then publish it?! It's insane to me IMHO. So then they decide to hold Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress which is the only escalation they have in this position.
So then they decide to hold Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress which is the only escalation they have in this position.
Also, Merrick Garland is the head of the DOJ, and only the DOJ can prosecute contempt of Congress as a crime. So if Congress says that DOJ is acting in contempt of Congress, they're asking DOJ to prosecute itself.
I aint no hypocrite, william barr is supposed to be in prison for contempt of congress for ignoring a subpoena. If Garland was subpoena'd, he's subject to the same standards.
Executive privilege is not written in law. But congress's authority to subpoena, and hold violators in contempt, is.
Then entire basis of US law, except Louisiana, is English Common Law. The Constitution itself is based on that. I’m afraid that you might not like the result but this is how it works unless the constitution gets amended or replaced.
It’s clear that you think that it was written in a vacuum without any historical context. That’s not how history works. It’s unclear why you are stuck on this particular hill.
"Inherent contempt" of Congress, a power rarely exercised and not used since the 1930s, is now being proposed as a significant measure. In this process, an offender is tried on the House floor, not by the Department of Justice. If the majority finds the offender in contempt, the House Sergeant-at-Arms arrests them until they comply with a subpoena or until the end of the legislative session. This move, historically used to coerce compliance rather than punish, is now being considered in a high-stakes political situation.
I thought the Democractic committee members and/or Pelosi said that Congress no longer has a "jail" in which the Sergeant at Arms could hold an arrestee.
The Sergeant-at-arms doesn't need an actual jail in the Capitol itself. If they are empowered to hold someone, they can do it anywhere, even a hotel room. The Capitol Police also have a holding cell which could be used.
This, certainly, won't go anywhere. Those with some sanity will realize that it's not worth up using every bit of political capital they have on a nothing burger.
"As of right now, we fully intend to bring it," Rep. Luna declared, "I don't really have much faith in the Department of Justice. And I don't think the American people do either.
Lovely how she actually pretends to speak for "the American people"
In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Justice Department official cited the department’s longstanding policy not to prosecute for contempt of Congress officials who don’t comply with subpoenas because of a president’s claim of executive privilege.
Edit: I know the whole situation. I was only asking what crime he committed in order to point out that no crime was committed. Thanks for the explanations, though. More people can be aware now.
Contempt of Congress is a crime. That being said, this was already addressed:
In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Justice Department official cited the department’s longstanding policy not to prosecute for contempt of Congress officials who don’t comply with subpoenas because of a president’s claim of executive privilege.
Garland is part of the current administration and the President has not waived executive privilege.
Contempt of Congress is determined by Congress, and that did happen. But the DoJ has a longstanding policy not to prosecute in situations like Garland's. And even if it did, the DoJ determined the source of the contempt charge wasn't valid, so neither was the charge itself.
Congress can’t override executive privilege arbitrarily (or even at all,)
It’s there to keep presidents from being meddled with by congress in exactly this manner, and charging executive officials who comply with executive privilege is contemptuous, and an attempt to weaponized the DOJ.
Executive privilege goes to the current sitting president, so Trump stopped hanging it the moment he was no longer president…
Right. Contempt of Congress charges are submitted to the DOJ to prosecute. And the DOJ has the policy to not prosecute those situations, as I posted previously.
Executive privilege doesn't just disappear, it would still apply to everything under previous presidents as well, but it's the current President that determines whether to remove it. Biden a while ago said it wouldn't apply to things Trump's administration is being investigated for.
It's more that after your term is over, you still have protection against having to answer for official acts during your term when you were still president. They've gone after Trump for the classified documents because that was not part of his official acts, so Biden has nothing to proect.
Executive privilege exists specifically to prevent congress from using its subpoenas powers excessively and interfering with the business of the executive branch doing its job. The, uh, co-equal, executive branch.
for example by subpoenas for extremely sensitive testimony by a sitting president specifically so it can harvest damaging sound bites to use in their election campaign.
Such a use would unduly chill the ability of the DOJ to interview witnesses and subjects in an investigation and expect candid cooperation.
When a POTUS invokes executive privilege, it goes to the courts to decide. Not congress. It is difficult to believe there is a legitimate need for crafting legislation, however, since they already have transcripts of the testimony. They don’t need the audio recordings.
Congress can vote that anyone is in contempt for anything that they feel like if they really want to. It doesn't mean it's real or going to go anywhere.
This is my understanding of the situation so please don't fully take my word for it.
Garland refused to fully cooperate with a subpoena issued to him by rebublicans. (specifically he refused to hand over audio from an interview of Biden in his classified documents investigation) Garland refused to cooperate because Biden told him not to cooperate. Republicans in congress then voted to find him in contempt of congress and wanted the DOJ to prosecute him. The DOJ then came through saying he didn't do anything wrong because he just did what Biden told him to do. And being part of biden's administration it's only normal to do what the president asks.
If we want to go back even further iirc there was a special council investigation into Biden regarding a handful of documents found at biden's home from the Obama administration. Biden apologized saying he forgot that he had those docs. He handed those docs over to investigators and fully cooperated with them. That whole situation ended with special investigators finding that Biden didn't do anything malicious and just forgot to relinquish (I think it was literally 3) those docs when he left office in 2016. That should have been the end of it. Republicans then drudged things up and wanted his interview from that investigation. Presumably to make it look like Biden was guilty of the same crimes trump is guilty of.
Technically speaking though Biden is guilty of violating the presidential records act. The same act trump is/was being tried for in his classified documents case. The difference being that Trump willfully took boxes upon boxes of documents pertaining to our national security secrets to Mar-a-Lago when he left office and then refused to cooperate with the FBI when they called him out for it. This then forced the FBI to raid Mar-a-Lago to get the documents back. Biden on the other hand was just old and forgot about some work he took home. When he was called out about it he fully cooperated and gave the documents back.
Garland refused to cooperate because Biden told him not to cooperate.
It's a little more complicated than that. The DoJ released the full transcript of all the interviews between the Special Counsel and President Biden. What's at issue now is that Republicans also want the audio tapes of all those interviews.
The DoJ is pushing back, and saying that Congress has all the info they need already with the full transcript, and they dont need the audio. The only purpose for releasing the audio is to use sound bites in Republican campaign ads.
I actually wish Biden never claimed executive privilege on it, because there is nothing on that tape we don't know. It's all in the transcript. Claiming privilege makes it look like there's secrets in it.
i also wish that the DoJ would have trotted out the 'No Legitimate Legislative Purpose" line that Barr did when he defied his subpoena. Because that is technically correct now: there is nothing to learn that we don't already know from the transcript.
I mean, I clearly didn't mean he had a guilty judgment against him and the word guilty doesn't necessarily always imply legally guilty. But fine. For semantic's sake, He's not "guilty", but he did in fact violate the presidential records act. It was just decided that he wouldn't be prosecuted because it was a just a small oversight. Which, to be clear, is a decision I agree with.
