Looks like House Democrats really are about to arrest Trump officials who don’t cooperate
Yesterday, word came that House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler had begun privately discussing a plan to arrest and imprison any Trump regime officials who try to obstruct the committee’s investigation into Donald Trump’s crimes. Now another member of that committee is publicly discussing the plan in question.
Democratic Congressman David Cicilline, who sits on Nadler’s House Judiciary Committee, appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews this evening and revealed that the committee really is looking to hold Trump officials in contempt and lock them behind bars, citing a nearly two hundred year old Supreme Court ruling. The practice of Congress arresting people for contempt has gone out of style in the modern era – but Trump and his regime are taking their obstruction antics to a level not seen in modern times.
Actually, there is one modern precedent in play here. NBC News legal analyst Glenn Kirschner pointed out this evening that one of the Articles of Impeachment against Richard Nixon was for precisely what Donald Trump is currently doing: instructing his underlings to refuse to cooperate with congressional oversight. So not only does the Trump regime’s current obstruction of Congress fall safely within the legal definition of contempt, it also falls within the established definition of impeachable offenses.
We’ll see what happens next. But it’s now more clear than ever that House Democrats are planning to bust Donald Trump’s henchmen like proverbial piñatas if they continue trying to illegally obstruct Congress in the name of protecting Trump.
