Oversight

As republicans take control of congress they are planning to investigate and they have the power to subpoena people to testify under oath but it is the Justice Department that must enforce subpoenas. Eric Holder was held in contempt of congress for failure to turnover documents “Congress can’t enforce their own contempt charges; all they can do is give notice to the attorney general that they would like it enforced, and Eric Holder never enforced it against himself,” When the congress and the president are of different parties there can be no enforcement so the famed congressional oversight is just words. They can investigate all they want but if the president doesn't want to help them they will get nowhere. Anyone that has something to hide will just refuse to testify and that will be the end of it. Or they could testify and lie under oath but nothing would be done about it if the Justice Department refused to enforce the law. There is a way around this but it has not been used since 1934. Congress has the rarely exercised power to act on a contempt resolution by instructing its sergeant at arms to arrest witnesses and bring them before the chamber’s presiding officer, with a conviction—presumably following some congressional “trial”—resulting in imprisonment in a cell in the Capitol. This is not effective because this power ends with the new congress and delays can be used to drag it out for a couple of years.