Episode 19: Inherent Contempt Works Better With a Congressional Jail

The National Security Law Podcast

Bobby Chesney and Steve Vladeck

Courses, Politics, News, Education, Government

4.8 • 646 Ratings

🗓️ 22 May 2017

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

School's out for summer...but the National Security Law Podcast keeps trucking along. In Episode 19, we find that the suddenly-student-less professors have used their newfound free time to...wait for it...add music to their intro. And just in case that brief riff is not enough, Chesney and Vladeck do go on to discuss some actual law and policy matters. They start with the appointment of Bob Mueller as a "special counsel," and go into considerable detail on the nature and origins of that particular office (contrasting it with the more-familiar "Independent Counsel" of Whitewater fame). This leads, inevitably, to a discussion of Mike Flynn invoking the Fifth Amendment in relation to a congressional subpoena for documents (from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence). Among other things, they survey SSCI's options for enforcement of its subpoena, noting along the way that the "inherent contempt" power is less fun without ye' old Capitol Jail (converted into a dining hall, alas, back in the 1850s). Then it's a brief review of the recent airstrike U.S. forces conducted against an Iran-backed pre-regime force in Syria as those forces persisted in approaching an airbase used by U.S. forces there, distinguishing the legal from the policy questions that strike raised. And finally, there are digressions galore, including a (very favorable) review of All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai and celebration of the fact that Kawhi Leonard made the cut for the NBA MVP Final 3 (well, only Bobby celebrated because, as you may recall, they bet dinner on it). Oh, the also *totally* forgot to follow-through on announcing the winner of last week's trivia contest, so watch the Twitter feed (@nslpodcast) for that, and stay tuned for it to be addressed on the show next week!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello from Austin, welcome to episode 19 of the National Security Law Podcast, brought to you by the Strauss Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
0:20.0	Today is Monday, May 22nd, and I'm
0:22.5	Bobby Chesney. And I'm Steve Vlodick, and Bobby, what was that? Someone, someone is hacked into our
0:28.0	feed and injected music. Music? Podcasts are supposed to have music? So a few people have told us.
0:34.6	It only took us 19 episodes to figure that one out. And, you know, we probably haven't even done it right this time.
0:39.2	But at least we're trying, folks.
0:40.3	We're trying.
0:40.9	Hopefully you heard some music, everybody.
0:44.2	It would be absolutely brilliant if we're going on and on about the music and no one actually hears a thing.
0:48.6	Well, you know, the software I'm using to edit this thing that we call a podcast is audacity. So hopefully it's the audacity
0:55.0	of hope and not the audacity of nope. It's certainly not the audacity of witty repartee today.
1:01.1	Not today. Bobby, it's Monday. Our grades are in. Yes. We did it. Oh, thank you. Summer. And one of us
1:07.9	sat through nine hours of graduation on Saturday. I went to the law school
1:12.0	graduation. So did I. And I stood for an hour and read the name of every graduating JD. You really
1:17.5	did. It was very impressive. And I used my best announcement voice, Steve Vladick. See, I really
1:24.8	think that like in the future, the UT graduation should have, you know, and now, at JD, from the University of Texas and Austin. His undergraduate degree is from Texas Christian University. It is, you know, fill in the blank. John Smith. If it didn't make you go long, I would do it in a heartbeat. Kind of like how we're making
1:44.5	this podcast go long by talking about this. Indeed, it's Bobby, it's almost like there's nothing
1:47.9	to talk about, but actually there's rather a lot to talk about. All right, Steve, what have we got
1:51.1	on the lineup for today? So apparently, since our last recording, oh, about a week ago, the
1:56.6	Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is now back in the sort of other camp. I don't know if
2:01.6	it's the good or the bad camp. He's back in my good graces. Ah, because he named former FBI
2:05.9	director Bob Mueller, Mueller everybody, as a special counsel under 28 CFR Part 600 to investigate
	...

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