Posted on 02/07/2023 12:57:28 PM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Hunter Biden’s Manhattan art dealer is refusing to provide any information about the buyers of the first son’s paintings to a congressional committee investigating the Biden family’s business dealings, The Post has learned.
In a Feb. 6 letter to Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, a lawyer for art dealer Georges Berges raises “concerns” about complying with the committee’s demands to see records about clients who have purchased Hunter’s work.
Refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena could result in a fine of up to $1,000 and up to a year in prison.
The committee, which is probing President Biden’s international and domestic business dealings, is set to begin hearings Wednesday.
The Post has seen the letter from attorney William Pittard, who represents Berges and Georges Berges Galleries LLC. It notes that providing information about the buyers would violate White House rules that were set up specifically to deal with the sale of Hunter Biden’s artwork in 2021.
“Providing the documents and information requested in your letter seemingly would defeat the efforts of Mr. Biden and the White House to avoid the ‘serious ethics concerns’ that you raise,” writes Pittard, citing a July 2021 press briefing in which then-press secretary Jen Psaki laid out the ground rules for the sale of the art.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Subpoena him. There is no art dealer privilege.
Dang, you have a jail there... start using it!
Part of a criminal conspiracy?
“Refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena could result in a fine of up to $1,000 and up to a year in prison.”
“$1,000 and up to a year in prison”
That’s peanuts and any good lawyer will get him off. How about TEN million dollars and TEN years? That would make him sing.
I think Steve Bannon had a valid separation of powers argument. This smuck has no argument. Will he get 10X the Steve Bannon treatment? Probably not with the two-tiered justice system.
Can he be forced via court?
It’s not a question of “art dealer privilege”.
It’s called #the Resistance, and they don’t have to do anything for any Republican, even an elected President, if they don’t want to.
If the art dealer refuses to appear or testify, hold him in contempt and incarcerate him.
The Resistance does not need lawyers to “get them off”.
Every DA, every judge, every lawyer knows, if they ever want to work again, if they want their kids to go to college, that going up against the Resistance is a fatal move.
You guys who keep writing about Republicans winning elections crack me up. Learn from the disaster of Trump’s four years.
You only get punished for ATTACKING the Resistance. Go along with it, you get rewards.
How many Republican "no" votes are needed to block such an initiative?
Answer: Four.
How many Republican votes can the Resistance count on when the chips are down? 100? 150?
You guys are dreaming.
sounds like obstruction of justice!
Irate Repulsive Subject.
That is what they did to Steve Bannon, though he avoided jail thus far.
The answer would be things like “Soros” or The Clinton foundation.
Does the law never mind. How about using the techniques used when only results count?
McCarthy needs to sign a whole bunch of blank subpoenas and hand them out to committee chairs. then...first you bring this lawyer in and charge him with contempt for interfering with the Proper Function of Government, then you JAIL him in YOUR OWN JAIL for the remainder of the Congressional Session, it’s in the basement. Then you do the same to the art dealer... rinse and repeat every frikkin day.
“U.S. CODE
TITLE 2—THE CONGRESS
CHAPTER 6—CONGRESSIONAL AND COMMITTEE PROCEDURE; INVESTIGATIONS
Sec. 193. Privilege of witnesses
No witness is privileged to refuse to testify to any fact, or to produce any paper, respecting which he shall be examined by either House of Congress, or by any joint committee established by a joint or concurrent resolution of the two Houses of Congress, or by any committee of either House, upon the ground that his testimony to such fact or his production of such paper may tend to disgrace him or otherwise render him infamous.”
Simply look up Hinds Precedents, especially chapters 53 and 51, and Cannon’s Precedents, especially chapters 184-185. You’ll find numerous detailed cases of Congress asserting its power, arresting people, holding them until they agreed to answer questions, and then releasing them. Some of these people did not refuse to appear, but simply failed to satisfactorily answer questions.
Congress has the authority to arrest and imprison those found in Contempt. The power extends throughout the United States and is an inherent power (does not depend upon legislated act)
If found in Contempt the person can be arrested under a warrant of the Speaker of the House of Representatives or President of the Senate, by the respective Sergeant at Arms.
Statutory criminal contempt is an alternative to inherent contempt.
Under the inherent contempt power Congress may imprison a person for a specific period of time or an indefinite period of time, except a person imprisoned by the House of Representatives may not be imprisoned beyond adjournment of a session of Congress.
Imprisonment may be coercive or punitive.
Some references
[1] Joseph Story’s Commentaries on the Constitution, Volume 2, § 842 http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/print_documents/a1_5s21.html
[2] Anderson v. Dunn - 19 U.S. 204 - “And, as to the distance to which the process might reach, it is very clear that there exists no reason for confining its operation to the limits of the District of Columbia; after passing those limits, we know no bounds that can be prescribed to its range but those of the United States.” http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/19/204/case.html
[3] Jurney v. MacCracken, 294 U.S. 125 http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/294/125/case.html 73rd Cong., 78 Cong. Rec. 2410 (1934) https://archive.org/details/congressionalrec78aunit
[4] McGrain v. Daugherty, 273 U.S. 135 - Under a warrant issued by the President of the Senate the Deputy to the Senate Sergeant at Arms arrested at Cincinnati, Ohio, Mally S. Daugherty, who had been twice subpoenaed by the Senate and twice failed to appear. http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/273/135/case.html
[5] Rules of the House of Representatives, Rule IV Duties of the Sergeant at Arms - [] execute the commands of the House, and all processes issued by authority thereof, directed to him by the Speaker. http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/HMAN-105/pdf/HMAN-105-pg348.pdf
[6] An analysis of Congressional inquiry, subpoena, and enforcement http://www.constitutionproject.org/documents/when-congress-comes-calling-a-primer-on-the-principles-practices-and-pragmatics-of-legislative-inquiry/
In 1857, a New York Times reporter refused to say which members of Congress had asked him to get them bribes (protecting his “sources” just as various Judith Millers today protect the people who feed them proven lies that costs thousands of lives), so Congress locked him up until he answered and then banned him from Congress.
In 1924 an oil executive appeared but refused to answer certain questions, so the Senate held — literally held — him in contempt. Senator Thomas Walsh of Montana argued that this question of contempt was of the gravest importance, and that it involved “the very life of the effective existence of the House of Representatives of the United States and of the Senate of the United States.” The matter was taken to court, and the witness fined and imprisoned.
bttt
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