U.S. House panel readies contempt vote against Barr over Mueller report

By David Morgan

 

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Attorney General William Barr speaks at a news conference to discuss Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential race, in Washington, U.S., April 18, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congressional Democrats moved closer on Monday to citing AttorneyGeneral William Barr for contempt of Congress over his failure to give them an unredacted version of the Mueller report, escalating a showdown with the White House.

 

The Democratic-led House Judiciary Committee released a report citing Barr, an appointee of President Donald Trump, for contempt of Congress after the expiration of a second deadline to produce the full report. Barr also skipped a hearing before the committee last week.

 

The panel will vote on whether to move ahead with a contempt citation on Wednesday, and if it does so, the full House will vote on the issue.

 

Barr has released a redacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-TRUMP-

 

RUSSIA/010091HX27V/report.pdf  on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler subpoenaed the full document and underlying evidence, setting an initial deadline that Barr missed last week.

 

Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd said he was disappointed with the committee's contempt move and invited committee staff to the Justice Department to discuss a possible compromise on Wednesday afternoon, after the committee's expected vote.

 

The Trump administration is stonewalling multiple probes by House committees.

 

A contempt citation could lead to a civil court case against Barr, raising the possibility of fines and even imprisonment for failure to comply.

 

Some Democrats on Nadler's panel say lawmakers could also exercise their own little-used "inherent" authority to act outside the U.S. judicial system to apprehend, fine and even imprison officials who do not comply with congressional subpoenas.

 

'NO CHOICE'

"The attorney general's failure to comply with our subpoena ... leaves us no choice but to initiate contempt proceedings," Nadler said in a statement. But he held out the possibility that Barr could avoid contempt by making a "good faith" offer for access to the material.

 

Republicans reject Nadler's efforts as political theatre, which they say is intended to satisfy the Democrats' voters.

 

"Democrats have launched a proxy war smearing the attorney general when their anger actually lies with the president and the special counsel, who found neither conspiracy nor obstruction," Representative Doug Collins, top Republican on the committee, said in a statement.

 

Some Democrats have called on Barr to resign, accusing him of protecting Trump by effectively clearing the president of criminal obstruction of justice and excusing actions viewed by them as evidence of misconduct.

 

Nadler's committee views the full Mueller report as vital to its own corruption and obstruction of justice investigation of Trump. The chairs of five other House committees investigating the president have also called for its release.

 

The Mueller report details extensive contacts between Trump's 2016 campaign and Moscow, but did not find that there was a conspiracy between Moscow and the campaign. The report also describes actions Trump took to try to impede Mueller's investigation.

 

If lawmakers established that Trump obstructed justice by seeking to impede Mueller, Nadler's panel could move to impeachment proceedings against the president.

 

Trump denied any wrongdoing in a tweet on Monday. "Also, there are 'No High Crimes & Misdemeanors,' No Collusion, No Conspiracy, No Obstruction.

 

ALL THE CRIMES ARE ON THE OTHER SIDE, and that’s what the Dems should be looking at, but they won’t. Nevertheless, the tables are turning!" the president wrote on Twitter.

 

(Reporting by David Morgan; additional reporting by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Alistair Bell and Lisa Shumaker)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-05-07

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Kill the policeman...to cover for our crimes...sick theater...

He was clearly lying.

Heh... indictments are coming. The Deep State rats are scrambling. 

As long as they know you can not release grand jury crap and that a congressional subpoena doesn't supercede federal law. There is no reason for Barr to give what the law will not allow. 

Edited May 7, 20197 yr by Cryingdick

Trump should pardon Mr Barr now ????????

 

2 hours ago, Boon Mee said:

Heh... indictments are coming. The Deep State rats are scrambling.

The whole reason for this Barr fiasco.

 

1 hour ago, Cryingdick said:

As long as they know you can not release grand jury crap and that a congressional subpoena doesn't supercede federal law. There is no reason for Barr to give what the law will not allow. 

What the law prohibits you mean. That one is a slam dunk, they aint getting GJ stuff.

Hundreds of prosecutors (hundreds)have signed a letter stating the only reason Donald isent charged with a felony is because he is potus this is after looking at the(redacted)report hundreds folks mr Barr has dug himsielf a very deep hole indeed the truth will be learned

Barr behind bars sounds about right.

 

Cryingdick,read and get your facts straight. A Congression Subpeona outways and is above the courts. Congress has SUPREME POWER TO INFORCE THE subpeona (refer 1934 High Court Ruling). Congress has the power and authority to act on this CORRUPT WHITE HOUSE ADMINISTRATION.

19 minutes ago, Paul Henry said:

Cryingdick,read and get your facts straight. A Congression Subpeona outways and is above the courts. Congress has SUPREME POWER TO INFORCE THE subpeona (refer 1934 High Court Ruling). Congress has the power and authority to act on this CORRUPT WHITE HOUSE ADMINISTRATION.

Could you explain that?

40 minutes ago, Nyezhov said:

 

The whole reason for this Barr fiasco.

 

What the law prohibits you mean. That one is a slam dunk, they aint getting GJ stuff.

We went through this with Nixon and it didn't pass muster then:

 

Under U.S. law, grand jury testimony generally must be kept secret. But if a grand jury matter involves “grave hostile acts of a foreign power” or other intelligence information, the information can be shared with appropriate government officials. The law also lets a judge release grand jury information when strong public interest is at stake.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-subpoena-explainer/explainer-can-democratic-subpoenas-force-the-release-of-muellers-trump-russia-report-idUSKCN1RE2GW?fbclid=IwAR3c_m6JtFxTAF3wzT3WnvYC8HZIJOzcycrSAFbMIe9u4agwNbfpW1iCtXM

 

2 hours ago, Cryingdick said:

you can not release grand jury crap

 

A judge can authorize its release, as has been done many times in the past.  

3 minutes ago, Credo said:

We went through this with Nixon and it didn't pass muster then:

 

Under U.S. law, grand jury testimony generally must be kept secret. But if a grand jury matter involves “grave hostile acts of a foreign power” or other intelligence information, the information can be shared with appropriate government officials. The law also lets a judge release grand jury information when strong public interest is at stake.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-subpoena-explainer/explainer-can-democratic-subpoenas-force-the-release-of-muellers-trump-russia-report-idUSKCN1RE2GW?fbclid=IwAR3c_m6JtFxTAF3wzT3WnvYC8HZIJOzcycrSAFbMIe9u4agwNbfpW1iCtXM

 

The DC Circuit just ruled on that exact issue against disclsure. Ill try to find the cite. And please dont forget the Watergate case was in connection with an Impeachment.

 

If the House wants to Impeach, well they can have the info then.

3 minutes ago, attrayant said:

 

A judge can authorize its release, as has been done many times in the past.  

see my post above

Edited May 7, 20197 yr by Nyezhov

3 minutes ago, Nyezhov said:

If the House wants to Impeach, well they can have the info then.

 

 

Impeachment is political theater; it has little bearing on legal matters.  Just draw up articles of impeachment to get the grand jury information, and then rescind them?  

11 minutes ago, attrayant said:

Impeachment is political theater; it has little bearing on legal matters.  Just draw up articles of impeachment to get the grand jury information, and then rescind them?  

why not, the Dems have already made the gov a farce

He lied. Like all that are in the trump circle, they lie. Pretty much all the time. I would think at election time all an opponent would have to do is run clips of trump’s lies (edited as it would go on for hours otherwise) and ask if this is really what the country is about?

35 minutes ago, Sir Swagman said:

He lied. Like all that are in the trump circle, they lie. Pretty much all the time. I would think at election time all an opponent would have to do is run clips of trump’s lies (edited as it would go on for hours otherwise) and ask if this is really what the country is about?

What did Barr lie about? He and Mueller had a disagreement about how the material was characterized in the original summary to congress. They did NOT disagree about the conclusions.   Anyway, it's moot point since the entire Report was released 3 weeks later. It's like a movie director complaining about a movie review, when the actual movie is freely available to the public.

 

This is all obviously political theatre. The Democats want to sift through the minutae of the report and the notes to find things that they can leak to the media to damage the President. Good on the AG for stopping them. 

An attorney general who obviously thinks he is above the law.

Beyond contemptible but unsurprising. 

3 hours ago, Paul Henry said:

Cryingdick,read and get your facts straight. A Congression Subpeona outways and is above the courts. Congress has SUPREME POWER TO INFORCE THE subpeona (refer 1934 High Court Ruling). Congress has the power and authority to act on this CORRUPT WHITE HOUSE ADMINISTRATION.

I've read that the Dems are considering issuing fines to folks who ignore subpoenas.  Not only Barr, but Justice personnel, the Treasury, IRS, etc.  This won't require approval from the WH, AG, or the courts.  We'll see how loyal these people really are when the law starts going after their individual wallets.  Because as we know, money talks and BS walks.    

1 minute ago, Berkshire said:

I've read that the Dems are considering issuing fines to folks who ignore subpoenas.  Not only Barr, but Justice personnel, the Treasury, IRS, etc.  This won't require approval from the WH, AG, or the courts.  We'll see how loyal these people really are when the law starts going after their individual wallets.  Because as we know, money talks and BS walks.    

 

And then when the time comes, we'll see how the democrats whine when a Republican controlled house goes after some of them.

1 hour ago, Hanaguma said:

What did Barr lie about? He and Mueller had a disagreement about how the material was characterized in the original summary to congress. They did NOT disagree about the conclusions.   Anyway, it's moot point since the entire Report was released 3 weeks later. It's like a movie director complaining about a movie review, when the actual movie is freely available to the public.

 

This is all obviously political theatre. The Democats want to sift through the minutae of the report and the notes to find things that they can leak to the media to damage the President. Good on the AG for stopping them. 

 

Your last paragraph is the most sensible and realistic comment on this sordid witch hunt. Rather than admit they were wrong, and lied, about Russian collusion, they now want to deflect and keep pawing over and churning the information hoping to seize on anything they can.

 

Pathetic. And sadly in-line with the sort of behavior exhibited by many who include the word "democratic" in their title.

Mr. Barr comes out of private practice to take on the left! Man he either is a glutton for punishment and or he has such confidence to be able to prove Mr. Trumps and his claims of attempted coup and spying by the 6 ways to Sunday cabal and their co conspirator MSM lackeys that they leaked too.

Edited May 7, 20197 yr by riclag

22 minutes ago, Baerboxer said:

And then when the time comes, we'll see how the democrats whine when a Republican controlled house goes after some of them.

 

 

That time came seven years ago for Eric Holder.

 

I think the Democrats had better be careful. They really should put this in the past before the AG starts looking too hard into the roots of this whole rotten mess. There are a lot of skeletons to be discovered in the collective Democrat/Obama/Comey closet, especially in regards to the shoddy evidence used to jump-start this whole mess.  It seems that Mueller skipped past a lot of the prequel details to start in on the results. AG Barr may 'correct' that oversight.

 

Barr seems the type that would just LOVE to start digging around and see what turns up. He has no political ambitions and no position to protect, he can just do his job without fear of retribution. 

Nothing the coup plotting Dems do or say is going to change the reality, which is no collusion. Obstruction charges against failed coup wont hold up well in court

Game over for them and they are bitter angry and panicking and hoping to muddy the water with hopes of escape. wont work.

Now the real investigation starts and pain is surely coming.

Comey report, oig report, and Barr and other ongoing investigations will lead to indictments and jail for treason and conspiracy to commit.

but but but omb is not gonna cut it. I suggest all the people suffering from trauma symptoms should organise a class action lawsuit against msm networks for their part.

Edited May 7, 20197 yr by cbtstorm

7 hours ago, Tug said:

Hundreds of prosecutors (hundreds)have signed a letter stating the only reason Donald isent charged with a felony is because he is potus this is after looking at the(redacted)report hundreds folks mr Barr has dug himsielf a very deep hole indeed the truth will be learned

Yes these prosecutors did, which completely contradicts Barr.  And it wasn't even close.  From the letter....

 

[The former prosecutors make clear that charging Trump’s conduct would be an easy call if he were not living in the White House: “We emphasize that these are not matters of close professional judgment,” the lawyers write. They add that “the overwhelming weight of professional judgment would come down in favor of prosecution for the conduct outlined in the Mueller Report.”]

Off-topic post removed.

 

9 hours ago, Hanaguma said:

I think the Democrats had better be careful. They really should put this in the past before the AG starts looking too hard into the roots of this whole rotten mess.

too late