Lost in the shuffle of Super Tuesday and COVID-19 dominating the news here in the U.S.: lawyers for the House Judiciary Committee told a court that if a recent ruling stands, they could be left with little choice but to “direct its sergeant at arms to arrest current and former high-level executive branch officials for failing to respond to subpoenas”
“As this case has proven, such cases may take months or years to resolve; accommodation, wherever possible, is far preferable,” he argued. But without even the possibility of judicial enforcement, “[f]uture Presidents may direct widescale noncompliance with lawful Congressional inquiries, secure in the knowledge that Congress can do little to enforce a subpoena short of directing a Sergeant at Arms to physically arrest an Executive Branch officer … By encouraging Presidential stonewalling, the court effectively dismantles the accommodation process.”