William Barr: Democrats to launch contempt proceedings against attorney general
‘The attorney general’s failure to comply with our subpoena, after extensive accommodation efforts, leaves us no choice’
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Your support makes all the difference.The House Judiciary Committee has announced plans to vote on Wednesday on whether to hold attorney general William Barr in contempt of congress.
President Trump’s appointee to lead the Department of Justice has stirred controversy in recent weeks over his handling of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Democrats accused him of lying before congress about whether he knew members of the special counsel’s team were “frustrated” by his public statements after the completion of the report, which sought to clear the president of wrongdoing despite numerous examples of possible obstruction of justice throughout the probe.
Mr Barr failed to appear for a second day of testimony on Capitol Hill last week after he was grilled on Wednesday, and reportedly failed to meet a Monday deadline to provide the House Judiciary Committee with a full, unredacted copy of the report and underlying evidence – the second such deadline he has not met.
“The attorney general’s failure to comply with our subpoena, after extensive accommodation efforts, leaves us no choice but to initiate contempt proceedings in order to enforce the subpoena and access the full, unredacted report,” House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler said in a statement.
The committee issued a report on Monday citing the attorney general for contempt over a panel subpoena seeking the full report. A meeting was also set for Wednesday at 10am local time to consider adopting the report.
A committee vote to adopt the report would send the document to the full House of Representatives for a vote, according to an aide.
The report calls on House speaker Nancy Pelosi to take “all appropriate action” to enforce the subpoena issued by Mr Nadler on 19 April.
Mr Nadler’s committee views the full report as vital to its own corruption and obstruction of justice investigation of Mr Trump. The chairs of five other House committees investigating the president have also called for its release.
Mr Mueller’s report details extensive contacts between Mr Trump’s 2016 campaign and Moscow, and the campaign’s expectation that it would benefit from Russian hacking and propaganda.
It also describes actions Mr Trump took to try to impede the special counsel’s investigation. Mr Barr released a redacted version of the report on 18 April.
Reuters contributed to this report
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