Eric Holder will sprout wings and fly before Lois Lerner goes to jail for contempt of Congress
Now that the House has found Lois Lerner in contempt and asked Attorney General Eric Holder...
Imagine the outrage that would erupt if House Speaker John Boehner dispatched congressional gendarmes to arrest Lois Lerner and confine her to the Capitol jail.
In defending such a decision, Boehner might say something like this:
"I remember before we made that decision of what to do, not only checking out the precedents on the inherent power of Congress to hold a person in contempt, but what would be done if that occurred. Who would go out and arrest Ms. Lerner? And where would she be incarcerated?
"I checked out the location of the old jail in the Capitol Building. I actually went and met with the Architect of the Capitol, and he took me around and showed me where they [the Capitol police] used to hold prisoners."
House Democrat did say that
The preceding quote was actually spoken. It happened in 1982 as House Democrats outraged by then-EPA Administrator Anne Burford sought a legal means of punishing her for delaying the announcement of a Superfund grant in California.
The speaker was then-Georgia Rep. Elliot Levitas. As Powerline's Steven Hayward explains this morning, he and his fellow Democrats were angry that Burford cited executive privilege in refusing to hand over documents about the delayed grant announcement.
Ultimately, Levitas's visit with the Architect of the Capitol proved unnecessary because the battle with Burford was resolved without resorting to what is arguably the ultimate congressional weapon against recalcitrant executive branch officials.
Nothing has changed since 1982
Originally posted here:
Eric Holder will sprout wings and fly before Lois Lerner goes to jail for contempt of Congress