Fox News Reporter: Yes, Jan. 6 Committee Actually Can Enforce Trump Subpoena, Based on 1930s Precedent

Fox News senior congressional correspondent Chad Pergram said that the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol can enforce its subpoena of former President Donald Trump, which was issued at the end of Thursday’s meeting.

Pergram noted that “no congressional committee has even entertained this prospect since the 1950s.”

“That was the committee on Un-American activities with former President [Harry] Truman. Wanted him to come testify. Then you have to go back to Presidents John Quincy Adams and also [John] Tyler. This is in the mid-1850s where there was a congressional committee that wanted John Tyler and John Quincy Adams to come testify. That’s pretty rare,” Pergram concluded.

Pergram then broke down “the process”:

It’s very unlikely that the former president would comply with this subpoena. So what do you do? The full House then would have a vote to compel somebody to testify or hold them in contempt of Congress. that is turf that we’ve never gotten to before, to hold a former president in contempt of Congress.

And if you do so, what you’re doing is you are sending a criminal referral to the Department of Justice and it is then up to [Attorney General] Merrick Garland and the DOJ to possibly prosecute that person or indict them much like what they’ve done with Steve Bannon and others who did not supply with those subpoenas. Now, there’ve been some instances here where they said we’re not going to prosecute former Trump administration officials. They certainly did with Steve Bannon.

With the subpoena issued on Thursday, according to Pergram, the DOJ doesn’t have to be involved in that Congress can act on its own.

This is pretty rare. And we have to go back to the 1930s. There is something called inherent contempt. Inherent contempt is where Congress executes this on its own. And they really haven’t done this since the early 18th century, the very beginning of the republic, frankly.

The most recent case was the 1930s. There was an air mail scandal and they actually went and arrested, the Congress did, an official from the Commerce Department and locked him up in a hotel in downtown Washington, the Willard, for about 10 days until he complied with the information. So there is an option for Congress to act. And that’s why this is one more big thing to do during the lame duck Congress.

Watch above via Fox News.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!