During a Capitol Hill ceremony last week honoring law enforcement officers, Attorney General William Barr and Speaker Nancy Pelosi shared a laugh over a recent House panel vote citing Barr for contempt of Congress.
“Did you bring your handcuffs?” Barr teased as they crossed paths near an outdoor podium.
Kidding aside, Pelosi, D-Calif., has become increasingly serious about punishing Barr and other Trump administration officials who refuse to participate in a wide-ranging investigation of the president, his actions in office, and his personal business dealings.
Some House Democrats are calling for Barr and other Trump officials to be jailed for refusing to cooperate with congressional inquiries.
[Related: Barr confronts Pelosi: ‘Madam Speaker, did you bring handcuffs?’]
Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., wants Barr jailed for refusing to testify before the House Judiciary Committee this month. Barr declined after he learned it would be lawyers, not lawmakers, who would be questioning him.
“You have to have him sit for a hearing, and you have to have him locked up until he agrees to participate and come to the hearing,” Cohen told CNN.
Pelosi herself has made jokes about confinement, even suggesting there is a jail in the Capitol basement. She pointed out to Barr at the law enforcement ceremony that the House sergeant-at-arms was present, presumably to arrest him if needed.
Barr chuckled, but Pelosi is getting serious.
Pelosi has been widely credited for steering her very liberal caucus away from demanding impeachment proceedings against President Trump. However, she has ramped up enthusiasm for subpoenas, contempt citations, and other punishments, including some that have been long dormant.
[Also read: Pelosi uses committees to keep impeachment off the table]
On Thursday, Pelosi endorsed the possibility of reviving the “inherent contempt” citation, untouched by Congress for 84 years. It would allow the House to impose steep fines and even jail time against the growing list of uncooperative administration officials.
“I imagine that this is a possibility that is out there,” Pelosi said when asked about fining Trump officials through an inherent contempt citation. “I’m not saying we’re going down that path, I’m just saying it’s not to be excluded.”
Pelosi and other Democrats are entertaining archaic punishments for Trump officials because they believe the administration is ignoring its constitutional authority to conduct oversight.
House Democrats were infuriated last week by the latest letter from the Trump administration, which defied congressional orders to provide documents and allow witness testimony before some of the half-dozen committees investigating Trump and his administration.
The letter, authored by White House counsel Pat Cipollone, rejected the authority of House Democrats to investigate the president, arguing that they are attempting to restart the Mueller investigation into alleged Russian collusion, which found no evidence of collusion by the Trump campaign.
To replicate a law enforcement investigation “simply because the actual law enforcement investigation conducted by the Department of Justice did not reach a conclusion favored by some members of the committee … is not a proper legislative purpose,” Cipollone wrote to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y.
The letter had Pelosi fuming. “The letter that came from the White House was completely outrageous,” she said. “It was totally outrageous. It says the president is above the law and Congress has no right to investigate any of the actions of the president, to hold him accountable in any way.”
Democrats haven’t scheduled a floor vote on Barr’s contempt citation.
Party leaders said they are taking an inventory of all the officials who have defied subpoenas and will combine them all when they bring the matter to the House floor, perhaps as soon as June. The list could include former White House counsel Don McGahn, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig. McGahn has refused to turn over documents related to the Mueller report and may decline to appear at a House hearing next week. Mnuchin and Rettig are refusing to provide House Democrats with a copy of Trump’s tax returns.
In an interview last week, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., appeared to frown on the idea of bringing up an inherent contempt vote against any Trump officials and dismissed talk of imprisoning anyone in a basement jail cell. Hoyer said he favored the more traditional civil contempt citations Congress has passed in recent disputes with the White House.
Civil contempt cases are fought out in court to obtain executive branch documents and testimony. The cases can take months or years to get resolved, but the committees would urge the court to expedite consideration, Hoyer said.
“This is a serious legal question as to the ability of the president to simply stonewall the American people when their representatives ask a question or seek documentation of what actions have been taken,” Hoyer said.
