Congress has its own Sergeant-at-Arms. Congress has full constitutional powers to compel testimony, issue subpoenas and enforce compliance with the summons. Congress is under absolutely no constitutional mandate to refer cases of contempt to the Justice Department, or to wait out a response from the Executive branch, or to wait to get a spot on a court docket. Congress is never, EVER, either under its own procedural rules OR under the Constitution, in a position of being powerless, stymied or paralyzed. Congress has no responsibility to be reflexively submissive to overweening executive arrogance. It is only the individuals who happen to be in the Congress who are ever powerless, stymied, paralyzed and reflexively submissive to overweening executive arrogance. No citizen should ever accept the miserable excuse from their wealthy socialite chardonnay-swilling representative that Congress doesn’t have the right to audit Executive decisions, or the power to enforce consequences in the face of contempt. As with the process of impeachment, Congress need not even find or prove any criminal activity to hold an individual in contempt. The contempt for the People of the United States, in Congress Assembled, is enough. By the bye, members of Congress themselves are not immune from the investigation and censure of their peers.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/hollywood-ten-men-who-refused-839762/item/alvah-bessie-1904-1985-839779

Americans can easily recall an example of famous people being dragged through Congress for contempt, and sent to Federal prison. The Hollywood Reporter’s excellent digest above gives the details on each artist’s career, but here, to name names, are their names:

Alvah Bessie — served 12 months in Federal prison in Texarkana, TX.

Herbert J. Biberman — served 6 months in Texarkana.

Lester Cole — served 12 months in prison in Danbury, CT

Edward Dmytry — served four-and-a-half months in Federal prison in Mill Point, WV, then named names.

Ring Lardner, Jr. — served 12 months in Danbury, CT, where his co-jailbird was none other than his shrill Congressional inquisitor J. Parnell Thomas, who was, of course, foully corrupt during the whole time he was leading the witch-hunt.

John Howard Lawson — Served 12 months in Federal prison in Ashland, KY.

Albert Maltz — Served 12 months in Ashland, KY.

Samuel Ornitz — Served 12 months in Federal prison in Springfield, VT.

Robert Adrian Scott — Served 12 months in Federal prison in Ashland, KY. Scott had taken his case to the Supreme Court, which upheld his sentence for contempt of Congress.

Dalton Trumbo — Served 11 months in Ashland, KY.

If Congress can send a bunch of geeky filmmakers to prison for contempt, they can do the same for Executive branch crooks and unhinged Congressional hooligans.