The Justice Department informed the House Judiciary Committee late Tuesday that Attorney General William Barr is not intimidated by a contempt of Congress vote.
Justice Department staff and the panel met Tuesday afternoon regarding a subpoena for access to special counsel Robert Mueller’s full report and underlying evidence. Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y. walked away from the meeting to say his committee is “still scheduled” to vote on contempt Wednesday morning.
In response, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote to Nadler that the committee had responded to their “accommodation efforts by escalating its unreasonable demands,” which included allowing all 41 members of the Judiciary and Intelligence committees and additional staff to read Mueller’s findings. The department offered to allow 12 top members in both parties access to a less-redacted version of the report.
The letter warns Nadler that Barr “will be compelled to request that the President invoke executive privilege” if the panel moves forward with the contempt process.
Boyd concluded that the Justice Department remains open to discussions with the committee.
Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said Nadler was being unreasonable. “It appears that the more access to information Democrats receive, the less interested they are in actually examining those facts,” he said in a statement. “This afternoon, the Justice Department delivered the latest in a succession of accommodations responding to Democrats’ demands, and the department’s endurance is admirable. Chairman Nadler, however, rebuffed the olive branch and plowed ahead with his plan to hold Attorney General Barr in contempt for upholding the law. I can’t imagine a more illogical hill for a legislator to die on.”
Despite the partisan divide in the House Judiciary Committee, a unified effort in the House Intelligence Committee is also demanding access to the full Mueller report as well as intelligence and counterintelligence information gathered by the special counsel, including “information regarding efforts by the Russian government to contact Americans in furtherance of Russian intelligence operations.”
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and ranking member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said in a recent letter, revealed Tuesday, that they will have “no choice but to resort to compulsory process” if the DOJ and FBI did not meet a deadline of last Thursday. A committee aide told Politico: “[T]he Committee will soon start the compulsory process since the Department has not even begun to comply.”
Mueller completed his investigation in March, and a redacted version of his 448-page report shows his team could not find sufficient evidence of criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. Although Mueller did not clear Trump of obstruction of justice, Barr said he determined that there is insufficient evidence to prove an obstruction crime, but Democrats argue that Mueller’s report, which outlines 10 instances of possible obstruction, leaves it up to Congress to investigate and decide.
Nadler is also threatening former White House counsel Don McGahn with contempt if he refuses to testify. McGahn, a central figure in the obstruction probe, received an order from the White House on Tuesday not to comply with a subpoena from Nadler seeking testimony and documents related to the federal Russia investigation on the possibility that Trump could assert executive privilege. In a letter, White House counsel Pat Cipollone told Nadler that he should come to the White House to request Mueller documents.
“I fully expect that the committee will hold Mr. McGahn in contempt if he fails to appear before the committee, unless the White House secures a court order directing otherwise,” Nadler wrote in response. “Further, even if Mr. McGahn is authorized by court order to invoke executive privilege as to certain testimony, he still is required by law to ‘appear before the committee to provide testimony, and invoke executive privilege where appropriate.’”
