House Speaker Mike Johnson wants this to be a serious and busy week, packed with passing appropriations bills for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. As usual, one of the Freedom Caucus members he’s been sucking up to has other plans.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida announced Monday that she plans to force a vote on her incoherent contempt resolution to have the sergeant of arms of the House arrest Attorney General Merrick Garland. Last week she suggested that she was working with Johnson and the leadership team to get it on the schedule. That apparently didn’t happen, so she’s going to force a privileged resolution—which has to be considered—to lock Garland up.
Move over Reps. Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene: Luna is coming for her 15 minutes of fame.
The House voted to hold Garland in contempt earlier this month, a futile waste of half a week of the calendar. The Justice Department summarily rejected following up on the House’s contempt charge, stemming from the department’s refusal to provide the video of special counsel Robert Hur’s interview with President Joe Biden in his documents investigation. The department provided full transcripts and Hur testified but that wasn’t enough for Republicans. They want video and audio they can chop up to make Biden look bad.
Of course holding that contempt vote wasn’t going to be enough to satisfy the chaos agents, and now we have this escalation from Luna. It’s a direct result of Johnson’s continuing efforts to appease the maniacs—a strategy that’s wearing thin with his colleagues. This one is particularly problematic because it’s untested and raises constitutional concerns.
House rules say “the recalcitrant witness may be arrested and brought to trial before the bar of the House, with the offender facing possible incarceration,” but what that looks like in practicality isn’t spelled out. How is a cabinet official protected by an FBI detail arrested? After he’s arrested, then what? Where’s he held? How is he prosecuted? None of that is covered in the rules or anywhere else.
Congressional experts, including those at the Congressional Research Service, warn that “because of the institutional prerogatives that are often implicated in inter-branch oversight disputes,” enforcing an inherent contempt charge “may raise constitutional concerns.”
Here’s another pickle Johnson has found himself in, entirely of his own making. And once again, he’s probably going to have to rely on Democrats to get him out of it. This time, however, they might not be inclined to help him.
RELATED STORIES:
GOP House speaker keeps his job for now, but Democrats hold the cards
House GOP amps up its revenge against the attorney general
House Republican wants to have attorney general arrested just because
