Here’s when Donald Trump will end up indicted for contempt of Congress
Here’s the thing about Steve Bannon’s indictment and arrest for contempt of Congress. It means that every additional January 6th Committee witness who’s properly subpoenaed, and refuses to comply, will also end up indicted and arrested. This raises the question of if and when Donald Trump himself will be subpoenaed and (assuming he doesn’t cooperate) indicted.
First, to be clear, there’s no magic wand scenario where the committee subpoenas Trump tomorrow and then just has him arrested for contempt this month. In order to maintain credibility with the average Americans who are going to tune in for the hearings, the committee has to work its way up through the various witnesses who are willing to cooperate, first establishing Trump’s guilt before subpoenaing him. And even if the committee were tempted to skip directly ahead to Trump, the DOJ might not be willing or able to indict Trump for contempt of Congress until the ongoing court battle over executive privilege is settled.
The appeals court has laid out a timetable which suggests that it’ll be done with the case before the end of the year. If the Supreme Court then refuses to take up the case, it’s over. Even if the Supreme Court jumps in, it’ll surely expedite things, and it may only add a few weeks to the process. And because the case is so clear cut, there’s little doubt that the courts will ultimately acknowledge that a former President like Trump has no ability to invoke executive privilege.
To that end, the January 6th Committee’s witness schedule is already chock full with Trump underlings through the end of this year. So the soonest the committee will end up subpoenaing Donald Trump is early next year – which falls in line with our expected timeframe for when the courts will be done with the executive privilege case.
So it’s realistic to foresee the committee subpoenaing Trump in perhaps January, him refusing to comply for fear of further incriminating himself, and the committee referring him to the DOJ for contempt.
Of course legally speaking, indicting a former President for contempt of Congress could be a more involved process than indicting a former White House staffer for contempt of Congress. So maybe the DOJ would take more than just three weeks to bring the indictment against Trump.
But two things are nearly certain. First, the January 6th Committee will end subpoenaing Donald Trump. There’s no question about this. When the committee talks about “considering” subpoenaing Trump, that’s just its way of acting like it’s keeping an open mind. And second, if Trump doesn’t cooperate, the committee will refer him for contempt and the DOJ will end up indicting him. It’s a matter of time.
