1/ Thread: Enforcement of House Committee subpoenas. House Committees have limited ability to enforce its subpoenas. Really three options. 1. Arrest. Many years ago, the House Sergeant at Arms arrested people for failure to comply with subpoenas. Hasn’t been done in a long time.
2/ 2. Criminal contempt. House can vote to refer non-compliant person for prosecution. But this relies on Trump DOJ to enforce. Not going to happen. 3. Civil contempt. House votes to file an action in court asking judge to order compliance with subpoena and to enforce order. This
3/ can be a long process, particularly with appeals. Timing is an issue because subpoena (and related court orders) expire when House terms is over. So at most two years. More significant than threat of compulsion is voluntary cooperation. For example,
4/ many companies don’t want negative publicity for refusing to comply with subpoenas. And - this is the big one -
5/ many public officials will be happy to comply with subpoenas (think Sessions, Rosenstein, Mueller, McCabe, McGahn). POTUS may be able to invoke executive privilege and order current officials not to testify or provide docs. But
6/ former officials may not want to cooperate with POTUS invocation of privilege. Here, watch for White House to initiate court cases to quash subpoenas.
