'Congress Has To Get Some Guts': Tim Burchett Calls For Vote On Garland Inherent Contempt Charge

4 months ago

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) joined "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss the inherent contempt of Congress citation for AG Merrick Garland.

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Transcript

00:00I do want to discuss what exactly inherent contempt is.

00:04Essentially, this gives this House Sergeant at Arms the opportunity and the authority to arrest

00:09Mark Garland. What would arresting him accomplish? Would that lead to you guys

00:15definitely getting the audio? It might not. I suspect that they will do everything within

00:22their power, within the president's power to keep that from seeing it. I doubt we will ever see it.

00:29But I think it's important that we hold the vote to show the American people who actually believes

00:35in the Constitution, who believes in the rule of law, and who believes that there's not two

00:39systems of justice, for goodness sakes. This just cannot continue to go on with the Biden family

00:46getting their way, and the rest of us, we don't have justice. I find this very offensive

00:52that we are doing this once again, and here we are with another member of this administration

00:58is literally thumbing their nose at the American public and the Constitution and the rule of law.

01:04Congress has to get some guts. I like tough votes because I want people back home to know how we

01:10vote. Too many of my colleagues go home to their Reagan Day and Lincoln Day dinners, and they throw

01:14out the red meat, and they talk about how tough they are, and then they come up here and sell

01:19their country down the road time and time again, and they just won't do it. And so I think it's

01:25time for some accountability, and it's going to cause some uncomfortable times up here,

01:30but dadgummit, we need it. We are going to lose our country. What have those conversations looked

01:35like with other House Republicans? Because the contempt of Congress vote passed very narrowly,

01:42so are the conversations to hold him in inherent contempt, are they uncomfortable? What do they

01:47look like? Can you take us into them? Yes, ma'am, they're not uncomfortable for me, but now I've

01:52been given word today that both Chairman Jordan and Chairman Comer agree with Representative

01:58Luna on this approach, so I would like to see a vote. I'm not uncomfortable with it. I think the

02:06ones that are uncomfortable with it are ones that don't want to have to justify their vote back

02:11home, and it is election season, so they are very uncomfortable with this. They avoid you on the

02:19House floor. They avoid you in committee. They avoid you in the halls, and that's just the way

02:24they do. That's human nature, but we're elected to serve this country and to serve our people,

02:31and currently a lot of people on both sides of the aisle are not doing that, in my opinion.

02:36Is Speaker Johnson comfortable with this move? Because Axios is reporting that the inherent

02:40contempt push is being met with, quote, strong resistance within the GOP.

02:46Yeah, I think it's within the moderate wing, but again, I would think that Speaker Johnson is a

02:53constitutional lawyer. He understands the Constitution. He understands where we're at.

02:58I don't feel like he is compromised. I feel like he's got some guts and some principles about him.

03:04We don't always agree on everything, but he's in a one- or two-person majority most of the time,

03:11so I feel like under these circumstances, the American public is highly alert to this. The

03:17media is alert to this. Our base is alert to this, and the left across the aisle is alert to this,

03:25so I would feel like this would be one of those votes that needs to be made.

03:29So you're confident that this is going to pass?

03:32No, ma'am. I'm not confident it's going to pass. I'm confident we'll get a vote on it,

03:36and then I'm confident that we probably will never see these takes.

'Congress Has To Get Some Guts': Tim Burchett Calls For Vote On Garland Inherent Contempt Charge

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