Earlier today, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) announced that she would be holding a press conference to address the statement she made last week about holding Merrick Garland accountable after he was found in contempt of Congress. “We will hold Merrick Garland in inherent contempt of Congress. No one is above the law. Tune in!” she wrote on her X account:

Just now, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna appeared in public to discuss the arrest of Barack Obama’s failed Supreme Court Justice nominee and America’s most crooked ever Attorney General.

We are here today because of the double standard that exists within the justice system. As you know, on February 27, the Oversight Committee, as well as the House Judiciary, had sent a subpoena to Attorney General Garland, of which we received no response, and after referring him for criminal contempt within 48 hours or less, the Department of Justice refused to prosecute. Inherent contempt is clearly within our Article One authority, and Congress does have the power to investigate all legislative powers.

Investigations are part of our legislative process, and people who interfere with these processes should be held accountable. Inherent Contempt was first used in 1795, and this was further upheld in a Supreme Court decision in 1927 and McGrain versus Doherty, which stated that Congress does indeed have this authority. It’s important to note that when an individual is called before courts across the country, they appear.

Why should the attorney general, who is supposed to be head of all law enforcement authorities, be any different? Garland still has time to comply with this request. We are asking that he bring the tapes to the house and let us listen to them, but in the event that he does not, we will press forward with calling the privilege motion on Inherent Contempt to the floor on Friday morning.

It is also important to note that if we as a Congress do not have the ability to enforce our investigative ability that we are essentially going to be ignored and undercut, and essentially handicapped by all other branches, which would make us not a co-equal branch of government.

I would appreciate that the press report on this accurately, that Congress again, does have the authority to do this, that the attorney general is not above the law, and ultimately, we will be pressing forward with this.

This is something that, again, would enable the Speaker of the House to order the Sergeant of Arms to take into custody the attorney general if he fails to comply with our request.

Democrats will certainly cry “foul” when they hear Rep. Luna threaten AG Garland with Inherent Contempt, but one doesn’t have to go back too far in history to find a time when a leading figure in the Democrat Party threatened President Trump-appointed AG Bill Barr with Inherent Contempt of Congress.

In May of 2019, Democrat Rep. and then-House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler threatened AG Bill Barr with Inherent Contempt of Congress if the DOJ didn’t give his committee an unredacted version of the Mueller report.

Congress’s dormant inherent contempt power—is rarely used in modern times. Inherent contempt was the mode employed by Congress to directly enforce contempt rulings under its own constitutional authority until criminal and civil contempt statutes were passed, and it remained in use into the twentieth century. Under inherent contempt proceedings, the House or Senate has its Sergeant-At-Arms or deputy, take a person into custody for proceedings to be held in Congress.

Although these powers are not directly stated in the Constitution, the Supreme Court has ruled on multiple occasions that they are implicit as an essential legislative power held by Congress.