While recovering from the birth of her first child and unable to vote, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna learned of an obscure House proceeding that could see Attorney General Merrick Garland arrested.
Frustrated that the DOJ has not taken action against the House that held Garland in criminal contempt earlier this month, it will force a vote on an “inherent contempt resolution” this week.
The criminal contempt resolution referred Garland to his own Justice Department for criminal prosecution after he refused to turn over the audio of Biden’s interview with the special counsel.
But the DOJ quickly announced that it will not act on the prosecutor’s recommendation.
If Luna’s resolution passes, it could force Garland to stand trial before the House of Representatives, and if found guilty, he would be detained by the House Sergeant-at-Arms.
While recovering from the birth of her first child and unable to vote, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna learned of an obscure House proceeding that could see Attorney General Merrick Garland arrested.
Inherent contempt last used in 1934 against Washington lawyer William MacCracken, who spent 10 days in jail for refusing to comply with a Senate subpoena.
“I was told I couldn’t vote when I was recovering from the birth of my son… what I discovered is that many members didn’t know it actually existed. And so I met with the lawmaker because I had no confidence in the DOJ.”
Luna was the only member of this Congress to have a child while in office.
“Garland is currently running for cover — at the risk of essentially making himself a criminal through Biden — for Biden’s goal of staying in office at all costs, even though it’s very clear they’re hiding something from the American people,” she told DailyMail. .com in an interview.
Republicans in the House of Representatives had issued two subpoenas for audio recordings of Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur about his mishandling of classified documents and his interviews with ghost writer Mark Zwonitzer.
The DOJ claimed it had been overly accommodating to House Republicans and their investigations by handing over a transcript of Biden’s interview.
But Republicans are skeptical about the transcript’s accuracy.
“It’s essential for us to do our investigation to make sure that they’re honest, that the transcripts haven’t been tampered with, and then I think there’s a big concern that there are cognitive issues with Biden.”
Frustrated that the DOJ has not taken action against the House holding Garland in criminal contempt, Luna will force a vote on her inherent contempt resolution this week
Because Luna will “privilege” the resolution, she does not have to follow the normal procedures of going through committee and then waiting for leadership to introduce the resolution in the House of Representatives.
Luna said she met with Chairman Mike Johnson about the inherent contempt, and that he prefers to work through the legal system to try to force DOJ to turn over the transcripts.
With the smallest majority in the House of Representatives, Republicans will need almost all the votes of their party to pass the resolution. On Monday morning, Luna sent a letter to her colleagues explaining the need for a “yes” vote on her legislation.
“The Department of Justice and the Attorney General cannot be the final deciders on whether to enforce a subpoena by Congress. “If Congress allows this, we risk becoming subordinate to the attorney general and completely neutralized in our ability to make law,” Luna argued. ‘
Why would anyone in the executive branch comply with our requests for information if enforcement of those demands depends on another department’s actions within their own?”
The House-wide vote to criminally hold Garland in contempt received the support of all Republicans except Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, who worried it would politicize the justice system.
During the interview, he said Biden looked “elderly” with a “bad memory” like his and a series of other stumbling blocks.
“I was told I couldn’t vote when I was recovering from the birth of my son… what I discovered is that many members didn’t know it actually existed. And so I met with the lawmaker because I had no confidence in the DOJ,” Luna said
“That nice old man with a bad memory is responsible for our nuclear launch codes, and more importantly, he should represent us on the world stage,” Luna said.
“When you have someone in that position who maybe doesn’t have the best memory or isn’t in it cognitively, our opponents know that. And you can see that with the withdrawal from Afghanistan shortly afterwards, China and Russia are both kind of moving towards the United States in our foreign policy. And you saw the invasion of Ukraine. You saw October 7 happen. It feels like the world is in chaos right now because of that.”