Article snippet: House Democratic committee leaders are threatening to hold top administration officials in contempt of Congress amid a series of ongoing investigations, a recourse that could lead to fines — or even prison. The idea has been floated in recent weeks by a small handful of rank-and-file members who’ve accused the administration of stonewalling, but it gained steam on Tuesday as the chairmen of several powerful panels said they’re also considering contempt in an effort to compel the cooperation of recalcitrant administration witnesses. “I promise we will do everything in our power to enforce our subpoena. I refuse to be in a situation where we’re unable to use every tool that we have in our toolbox to do that,” Rep. MORE (D-Md.), chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, told reporters in the Capitol. Invoking a little-used process known as inherent contempt, Cummings said, is one of those options. ”We will look at all those tools from a very practical standpoint,” he said. “It may be that we want to just deal with fines, I don’t know. But it’s either fines and/or prison.” Separately, Reps. “I think we need to explore any mechanism that we have to insist on the administration complying with the law,” Schiff told The Hill. “And that obviously includes litigating it, it includes fencing funding, it may involve resurrection of the power of inherent contempt.” Under inherent contempt, both the House and the Senate have the authority to “detain and imprison”... Link to the full article to read more
House Dems eye contempt charges for Trump officials | TheHill
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