Sending the Sargent at Arms to arrest Bannon would, in theory, see him brought before Congress first. To testify/comply with the subpoena. If he doesn’t there is an immediate trial, in Congress by Congress. And penalties are issued. It’s not a we hold him till he testifies thing. It seems like a simple habeas corpus was usually enough to keep people from being held longer than a few days during all this. It looks like past penalties were days in jail, and small fines.
Does that sound like a clean, neat, quick process? Does it sound like it even has teeth? I don’t think a vote to pursue that would go particularly well, I don’t think a resulting trial in the house would be all that neat. And from what I understand in the past those fines usually went unpaid, the short jail terms un-served. Cause all one has to do is not comply, or buy time with court challenges, till the Congressional term is up. At which point it all expires unless the new congress can be convinced to continue them or start over.
Well that seems to be the history of the thing.
This isn’t an explicit constitutional power with clear terms. It’s something that came out of Congress just doing it, before we had things like federal law enforcement or court officers. And Supreme Court decisions coming as it was used.
It wasn’t an extraordinary thing that was to be rarely used. Originally it was the only way to enforce these subpoenas. By the 1850’s it was confused enough we passed a law trying to speed it up. By 1900 it had become uncommonly used, and after that last use in the 30’s we created other options. Specifically referring it to the DOJ for charges, or filing civil lawsuits over it.
That’s why it only came up under Trump as a “last option” sort of thing. It would be an extraordinary act these days, and the possibility that it might be done had to do with the normal approaches being cut off. Not that it was faster, or better, or the way this is done.
