"They came up and said, 'This is our offer. Take it or leave it. Accept these papers where we've erased 100 pages or more so you don't even know what's on there. Do a closed door hearing where the public has no idea what is said and they're not under oath, and if you don't like that, take it or leave it.' Well nobody's going to take that."
This in the case of the Administration firing political appointees who serve at the pleasure of the President.
Sen. Leahy, 1999, praising a White House proffer to allow questioning of Administration figures behind closed doors, with no transcript, not under oath:
on this clemency matter, the Department has voluntarily sent the Committee several boxes of documents, totaling over 3000 pages, on the clemency matter. The Department has also already made the Pardon Attorney available to provide an informal briefing to the Committee on clemency procedures.This in the case of the Administration granting clemency to a Puerto Rican terror group --something Leahy himself characterized as a gross misjudgment.
Most importantly, compelling compliance with a congressional subpoena in this context would be difficult. The civil contempt mechanism normally available to Congress, see 28 U.S.C. § 1365, specifically exempts subpoenas to the executive branch. The criminal contempt mechanism, see 2 U.S.C. § 192, which punishes as a misdemeanor a refusal to testify or produce documents to Congress, requires a referral to the Justice Department, which is not likely to pursue compliance in the likely event that the President asserts executive privilege in response to the request for certain documents or testimony. Thus, the only legal way to enforce this subpoena would be to hold a witness in contempt using its “inherent contempt of authority,” but this would require a contempt trial on the floor of the Senate. Not many of us relished our role as jurors during the impeachment trial and are not anxious to reprise that role.
Curtsy: Mark Levin
