What is happening re trumpy’s subpoena? The silence is deafening.
(Is this the correct thread for that question?)
Lawyers are telling him things.
He is ignoring the lawyers.
And throwing food on the walls.
Committee members are privately discussing how to handle the matter if Trump fails to comply with the subpoena once they issue it. I think they want to have a firm course of action set before proceeding further. Hence the delay.
I would have thought, with the gravity of this request, they would have already covered that?
I think the committee should consult the SDMB. They should come here, open a thread, and ask for suggestions about how to drag/manipulate/trick that MF into testifying. Goodness knows, we have put more person-hours into analyzing TFG than any and all gummint sources rolled into one.
Or they should just go full-on crowd-sourcing. Like when a new baby giraffe is born at the zoo and all the media outlets solicit ideas for a name for the baby. Liz Cheney should just open the question to the public at large (if there is such a thing, as someone said here today) and let people some up with suggestions. Two-hundred-millions head are better than, um, a few.
I agree. This particular suggested explanation for the delay seems unlikely to be true–how could it be that the Committee members never bothered to think through how they’d handle Trump’s probable responses until now???
Bad idea. They would quickly get sucked into arguing about airplanes on treadmills, the ethics of circumcision, and which cover was better than the original. They would never get around to scheduling the next committee meeting.
I’m not all that convinced that Trump won’t testify. Trump’s wet dream is to go on live TV and stand up to his accusers (“Unselect! Unfair!”), so the whole country can see them quail in the face of Trump’s brilliance and rhetoric. No reasonable person would do it, but when has that ever stopped Trump?
The devil, as they say, will be in the details. Will Trump testify behind closed doors, or on live TV; will he be sworn in, or not? I’d kinda like to see the Committee make a deal for him to give unsworn testimony, and as soon as the cameras are turned on they bring out a bible and ask him to swear to tell the truth.
There is zero chance the Committee will permit Trump to testify in public without first deposing him in private. Trump will never agree to that, and everyone knows this.
Time runs short for the Committee; they are 9 individuals with limited staff who are faced with what to do with people who blew off their subpoenas; they’re still running down tips and leads; have a 1,000+ page final report to prepare – and all before the end of the year. Their plates are very full already.
AIUI, they issued the subpoena mostly for the sake of history, and to prevent Trump from saying he was never given an opportunity to tell his side of the story. (Bearing in mind, of course, that he was never prevented from coming to testify on his own initiative to present that.)
I wouldn’t get your hopes too high for a live testimony spectacle.
Only if the bible is upside down though.
This reply made my morning.
Just as an aside, I’ve started referring to disgraced twice-impeached former president Trump as disgraced twice-impeached former un-president Trump.
ETA: seems like there should be a “so-called” in there somewhere too.
From the moment he was elected, and all through the Clusterfuck threads, I referred to him as the “so-called president.” (He didn’t get a capital “P” in president either. I didn’t start to capitalize the word again until Biden was elected.)
What’s to discuss? If he doesn’t comply, do what they did to Steve Bannon. Arrest him. Put him on trial for contempt.
#45 with an *, emphasis on the ass.
The procedure is that the committee has to report a resolution of contempt to the full house, and the house has to vote to hold the person subpoenaed in contempt. You really think the full house is going to do that after the GOP takes over? So this procedure would have to proceed quite quickly - in spite of whatever delays the witness manages to throw into the process - or not at all.
Once all that happens, the DC US Attorney would need to follow through. This is assuming a statutory contempt proceeding. There’s also civil and inherent contempt options, though the latter hasn’t been done in 90 years.
+1. Completely agree.
I’ve studied that photo and I think it wasn’t upside down after all.
The spine is not visible and there was a purple ribbon marker sticking out of the bottom. I think it was one of those rare Bibles with no Holy Bible imprint on the cover. However upside down or not i small potatoes the the rest of the incident.
I think this is new:
Not a great week to be Big Orange.
Here a link to the actual ruling. I’m always surprised and frustrated at how many news stories about these court filings don’t link to the actual document.