We all know that Antony Blinken is a gutless, Peter-principle-acolyte who worships the ground that SharterJoe walks on. As Sec State, he's an absolute zero -- unless it involves stonewalling, obstruction, and the usual shit that the Dems pull and get away with.
When I read this article at PJ Media, my first reaction was, "Big whoop. They've issued subpoenas, which were ignored by Blinken and his thugs. What's this congressional committee gonna do about it? Cry? Implore Lucy to hold the football in place so Charlie Brown can kick it?"
So I took a few minutes and unearthed this document linked below. At 13 pages, heavily footnoted, I found it both interesting and completely nonsensical. The Supreme Court has decreed in case law that congressional demands for information shall be honored. But the stonewalling goes on and on and on.
Here's the fundamental problem -- the DOJ is the executive branch entity that is supposed to prosecute criminal and civil lawbreaking. What happens when the criminal and civil lawbreaking goes on in the DOJ? Answer -- nothing. The executive branch is going to protect DOJ and drag out, stonewall, obstruct, and do everything it can to make that annoyance go away and sure enough -- before too long, the House and Senate will have shifted in terms of who's in power and the annoyance, most of the time, just goes away. (There are a couple of recent examples in the paper at the link that cite Harriet Miers, GWB's White House counsel, and Josh Bolten, GWB's chief of staff, both of whom middle-fingered a Dem Congress when they wanted docs. Miers and Bolten cited executive privilege and after almost two years of patty-cake, the parties "reached a settlement.")
Glory, hallelujah. How long can you play patty-cake?
This is what we're paying these assholes to do. But I digress.
Congress is left with three things - threatening a subpoena or even issuing one (which, in the case of Blinken, is completely useless); holding the information holder in contempt of Congress (another useless exercise - witness Eric Holder under Barry's regime), or bringing a lawsuit in federal court of "civil enforcement of congressional authorities", which is the title of the paper at the link.
The upshot is, Blinken is a turd and he is certainly unqualified to hold the position he does. But until this system of congressional demands that result in information being promptly and completely provided by whomever has that information, Congress is just pissing in the wind. Shit-tons of paper are generated, lawyers are paid staggering amounts of money, and it's business as usual in the D.C. Swamp.
Again.
Joe Biden’s Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, may soon be charged with contempt of Congress, as his office has disregarded several subpoenas for documents issued by the Republican-led House Oversight Committee.
Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Tex.), the Chairman of the House Oversight, says that Antony Blinken and the State Department have missed several deadlines for submitting documents related to President Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan over the past few months. McCaul is now warning that he will take action to hold Blinken in contempt if he continues to obstruct the investigation.
“The Department is now in violation of its legal obligation to produce these documents and must do so immediately,” McCaul said in a Monday statement. “Should the Department fail to comply with its legal obligation, the Committee is prepared to take the necessary steps to enforce its subpoena, including holding you in contempt of Congress and/or initiating a civil enforcement proceeding.”
Blinken has until May 11 to provide the documents.
McCaul and other Republicans are requesting access to a dissent report issued by the U.S. Embassy in Kabul shortly before Joe Biden initiated his ill-fated withdrawal plans. Dissent reports typically outline any reservations that American officials may have regarding a specific course of action.
Blinken’s State Department chose not to comply with the subpoena but instead proposed to provide a briefing on the documents’ contents to McCaul and his committee. McCaul originally agreed to the briefing but has since made it clear that it did not meet the requirements of complying with the subpoena, as McCaul and other Republican members of the committee maintained that they had unresolved inquiries that could only be resolved by examining the requested documents.
The State Department, for some reason, doesn’t seem to want to give the committee access to the documents.
“It’s unfortunate that despite having received a classified briefing on the dissent channel cable, as well as a written summary, that the House Foreign Affairs Committee continues to pursue this unnecessary and unproductive action,” said State Department principal deputy spokesman Vedant Patel. “Nevertheless, we will continue to respond to appropriate oversight inquiries and provide Congress the information it needs to do its job while protecting the ability of State Department employees to do theirs.”
This development is the latest scandal to affect Secretary of State Blinken. Last month it was revealed that Blinken orchestrated the letter from 51 former intelligence officials that falsely labeled Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation on behalf of the Biden presidential campaign, making him a key figure in the Biden campaign’s election interference scheme.
Here's the interesting paper I mentioned:
https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/112726/witnesses/HHRG-117-JU03-Wstate-GarveyT-20210608.pdfArticle link:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/05/09/secretary-of-state-antony-blinken-may-face-contempt-of-congress-charge-n1693663
