‘Subpoena cannon’: will the Democrats’ plan blow up in their faces?

The Democrats’ tactic of bombarding Donald Trump with legal action is the latest example of loaded US political vocabulary

This week the Democrats, having regained power in Congress, promised that they would pursue legal action against the president by loading a “subpoena cannon”. A what cannon? A subpoena what?

“Sub poena” is Latin for “under a penalty”, so a subpoena, in English since 1426, is a writ requiring the attendance of a defendant or witness at court, or the production of documents. But why load them into a cannon? A shower of burnt confetti would seem to help no one.

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from Books | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2FN2qA9

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