AP forgets about 'inherent contempt"

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070712/pl_nm/usa_prosecutors_dc;_ylt=AlwMhgpRBh0cxPDfI7zTq9_MWM0F



After her panel approved the ruling, Sanchez said, "This subcommittee and the full committee will take under advisement what next steps are warranted."

Unless the White House reaches a compromise with lawmakers about testimony and documents, the Judiciary Committee could vote to hold Miers in contempt of Congress.

If the full House of Representatives concurs, the case would be referred to a U.S. attorney to seek a grand jury indictment.

Miers refused to attend the hearing under orders from Bush a day after another former White House aide, Sara Taylor, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in its investigation of the fired prosecutors.

[seemslikeadream]

1. Inherent contempt

"Contempt of Congress" as explained by Wikipedia
As explained here (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_Congress), there is clear precedent for Congressional action against executive branch officials:

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Procedures

Following the refusal of a witness to produce documents or to testify, the Committee is entitled to report a resolution of contempt to its parent chamber. A Committee may also cite a person for contempt but not immediately report the resolution to the floor. In the case of subcommittees, they report the resolution of contempt to the full Committee, which then has the option of rejecting it, accepting it but not reporting it to the floor, or accepting it and reporting it to the floor of the chamber for action. On the floor of the House or the Senate, the reported resolution is considered privileged and, if the resolution of contempt is passed, the chamber has several options to enforce its mandate.

Inherent contempt

Under this process, the procedure for holding a person in contempt involves only the chamber concerned. Following a contempt citation, the person cited for contempt is arrested by the Sergeant-at-Arms for the House or Senate, brought to the floor of the chamber, held to answer charges by the presiding officer, and then subject to punishment that the House may dictate (usually imprisonment for punishment reasons, imprisonment for coercive effect, or release from the contempt citation.)

Concerned with the time-consuming nature of a contempt proceeding and the inability to extend punishment further than the session of the Congress concerned (under Supreme Court rulings), Congress created a statutory process in 1857. While Congress retains its "inherent contempt" authority and may exercise it at any time, this inherent contempt process was last used by the Senate in 1934, against the Postmaster-General. After a one-week trial in the Senate floor (presided by the Vice-President of the United States, acting as Senate President), the Postmaster-General was found guilty and sentenced to 10 days imprisonment.

The Postmaster General had filed a petition of Habeas Corpus in federal courts to overturn his arrest, but after litigation, the US Supreme Court ruled that Congress had acted constitutionally, and denied the petition in the case Jurney v. MacCracken, 294 U.S. 125 (1945).