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Federal Judge Richard Leon didn’t decide what to do with impeachment witness Charles Kupperman’s court case today, after more than an hour of arguments.

The House and the Justice Department have asked the DC District judge to dismiss the case — and the House lawyers promised emphatically that their committees wouldn’t subpoena Kupperman, a former deputy national security adviser, as impeachment heads to a Senate trial. The House also wouldn’t hold him in contempt, its lawyers said.

Why this matters: The case — where Kupperman went to court after he received a House subpoena in late October and was told by the White House not to testify — has effectively put a pause on the fight between the House and the White House over impeachment witnesses. Several did not testify under the President’s direction, and the House announced today it would introduce an article of impeachment against Trump for obstructing Congress. Kupperman, at times, has been considered a stand-in for John Bolton, another top witness the House had wanted to speak about the President and who hasn’t testified.

The House admitted in court Tuesday it’s basically powerless to force administration officials to testify at this time.

“We like to keep up appearances we have a jail in the basement,” US House attorney Todd Tatelman told the judge, conceding that the House wouldn’t arrest a person on his or her own for defying a congressional subpoena. The House would “absolutely will not be doing this here in this instance.”

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