I have seen a report of Rep. Jim Banks’s reaction 同位语从句that the move against Steve Bannon is aimed at a Democrat “bogeyman.”
Still, can Mr. Banks, 定语从句who led the Republican opposition to the Bannon contempt citation, furnish the American people with any statement by a House Republican 分词定语calling attention to the inquisitorial nature of the subpoena itself?
To my eye, the subpoena allows no recognition of the right to free speech, nor does it recognize the right of GOP legislators to meet in private.
See, for example, the demand for documents 分词定语dealing with “[a]ll public relations, advertising, or other communication efforts to persuade 宾语从句Americans that the election was stolen.” I thought the Supreme Court, in New York Times v. Sullivan at page 25 of this online edition of the opinion, recognized our “profound national commitment to the principle 同位语从句that debate on public issues shall be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”
状语从句If the Bannon subpoena is upheld, the court so ruling will effectively declare that New York Times v. Sullivan is a dead letter, and debate on public issues must be held within the parameters 分词定语established by the majority in the House of Representatives. So much for the First Amendment 定语从句that, at present, states that Congress shall make no law abridging, among other things, free speech.
状语从句As I am presently unaware of the comments made by Republican House members on the Bannon subpoena debate, I do not know宾语从句 if any member of the Republican caucus cited that aspect of the subpoena, 分词demanding documents relating to Bannon’s “presence, purpose, statements, and activities at a meeting with Members of Congress at the Willard Hotel on January 5, 2021, or the presences, purpose, statements or activities of others in attendance related to that meeting.”
状语从句If this demand were upheld by a court, what gathering of House Republicans could not be subject to leftist snooping? Indeed, it seems 主语从句that Pelosi could demand宾语从句 that Democrat monitors be present at all gatherings of two or more Republican congressmen.
Would Rep. Banks please explain to me 宾语从句how legislative democracy could survive court approval of the tyrannical subpoena 定语从句that Cheney and Kinzinger voted for, along with A. Gonzalez, F. Upton, J.H. Beutler, P. Meijer, and J. Katko, 定语从句all of whom voted to impeach a former president over an event 分词定语politicized for tyrannical purposes by Speaker Pelosi? Two other GOPers stupidly voted for the Bannon subpoena: N. Mace of South Carolina and B. Fitzgerald of Pennsylvania. They did not vote for impeachment.
Two GOPers who voted for impeachment — D. Newhouse of Washington and T. Rice of South Carolina — did not vote for the subpoena.
Mr. Meijer reportedly asserted宾语从句 that a vote to hold Mr. Bannon in contempt was necessary to protect the authority of congressional subpoenas. 主语从句What here he would protect, to my mind, is the sanctity of totalitarian government.
Perhaps you can assure me 宾语从句that the 209 Republicans定语从句 who voted against holding Mr. Bannon in contempt reject the subpoena 状语从句because it is the instrument of a partisan vendetta intended, in my view, to turn the Republican Party into a stooge of the Democrat Party — as Cheney and Kinzinger have done all by themselves — and, seemingly, without repudiation by the House Republican leadership.
Still, the Republicans of the House and Senate should, days ago, have risen in solidarity against this attack on the spirit of American liberty and declared: this subpoena is contrary to everything Americans hold dear and, quite simply, must be quashed by the legal process ASAP.
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