Voters must dive into murky legal waters around 'contempt of Congress' fracas

It’s easy to understand why people find government and the law hard to understand. The fact is: Government and the law often are a challenge to understand or explain.

Take the news of this past week, when the House voted to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress. Garland is only the third attorney general to be held in criminal contempt of Congress since the beginning of the American Republic in the 1780s.

That seems like a pretty big deal. On the other hand, much of the news coverage over the past few days has dismissed any thought of Garland being sent to jail or even prosecuted. So the net effect of his contempt citation might well be zero.

The Justice Department has already informed House Speaker Mike Johnson it will not prosecute Garland. Johnson has already responded that the House would go to court to seek enforcement of the citation without the cooperation of Justice.

Beyond that, the House could spend much of the time it has remaining this year on an impeachment proceeding. But the only official impeached in the current Congress, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, had his case summarily dismissed in the Senate.

So that suggests “contempt of Congress” is not such a big deal.

Except that earlier in this same month, we saw former President Donald Trump’s ally Steve Bannon exhaust his appeals and be ordered to prison to serve four months beginning no later than July 1. Meanwhile, another former Trump adviser, trade economist Peter Navarro, is in a federal facility in Miami serving a similar sentence right now.

Both men were given far shorter sentences than they might have faced. Still, they are serving prison sentences. And both of their long-running court cases began with