{"id":212381,"date":"2019-05-02T03:13:06","date_gmt":"2019-05-02T07:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=212381"},"modified":"2019-05-02T03:13:06","modified_gmt":"2019-05-02T07:13:06","slug":"barr-to-be-a-no-show-for-house-hearing-stepping-up-tensions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/05\/02\/barr-to-be-a-no-show-for-house-hearing-stepping-up-tensions\/","title":{"rendered":"Barr to be a no show for House hearing, stepping up tensions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Attorney General William Barr has informed lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee that he will skip a hearing on special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, escalating an already acrimonious battle between Democrats and the Justice Department. (File Photo By The United States Department of Justice\/Wikimedia commons, Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Attorney General William Barr has informed lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee that he will skip a hearing on special counsel Robert\u00a0Mueller’s report, escalating an already acrimonious battle between Democrats and the Justice Department.<\/p>\n

Barr’s decision \u2014 he cites a disagreement over the questioning \u2014 came the same day the department missed a committee deadline to provide the panel with a full, unredacted version of\u00a0Mueller’s Russia report and its underlying evidence. Those moves are likely to prompt a vote on holding Barr in contempt, and possibly the issuance of subpoenas \u2014 bringing House Democrats and the Trump administration closer to a prolonged battle in court.<\/p>\n

Even though Barr informed the panel he isn’t coming Thursday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said he will still convene the hearing, raising the prospect of an empty witness chair.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope and expect the attorney general will think overnight and will be there as well,\u201d Nadler said.<\/p>\n

As Barr refused to testify, Democrats sought to speak to\u00a0Mueller\u00a0himself. Nadler said the panel hoped the special counsel would appear before the committee on May 15 and the panel was \u201cfirming up the date.\u201d<\/p>\n

The attorney general’s cancellation meant he would avoid another round of sharp questioning after testifying Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Democrats on the panel charged that Barr was protecting President Donald Trump after he assessed\u00a0Mueller’s report on his own and declared there wasn’t enough evidence that Trump had committed obstruction of justice.\u00a0Mueller\u00a0didn’t charge Trump with obstruction, but wrote that he couldn’t exonerate him, either.<\/p>\n

The standoff with Justice Department is one of several fights House Democrats are waging with the Trump administration. Trump has vowed to fight \u201call of the subpoenas\u201d as multiple committees have sought to speak with administration officials or obtain documents relevant to his policies and finances. Democrats have signalled they won’t back down and will take the steps necessary \u2014 including in court \u2014 to get the White House to comply.<\/p>\n

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she’s not interested in impeachment, for the moment. But she told The Associated Press on Wednesday that \u201cthe threat of impeachment is always there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nadler, D-N.Y., and the Justice Department traded barbs shortly after Barr informed lawmakers of his decision on the hearing, with Nadler saying the attorney general is \u201ctrying to blackmail the committee\u201d by setting his own terms. Barr had objected to the format of the hearing after Democrats decided to let staff attorneys conduct a round of questioning after lawmakers were done.<\/p>\n

Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said the staff questioning is \u201cunprecedented and unnecessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also weighing in on the matter of who would ask questions was Trump. \u201cThey want to treat him differently than they have anybody else,\u201d the president told Fox Business Network’s Trish Regan on Wednesday night, adding, \u201cYou elect people that are supposed to be able to do their own talking.\u201d Trump said he heard that Barr had performed \u201cincredibly well\u201d before the Senate panel.<\/p>\n

It’s unclear whether Barr will eventually negotiate an appearance with the House panel. Nadler said he would not issue a subpoena for Barr’s appearance on Thursday but would first focus on getting the full\u00a0Mueller\u00a0report, likely including a vote holding Barr in contempt of Congress.<\/p>\n

While a contempt vote would make a strong statement, it is unlikely to force the Justice Department to hand over the report. A vote of the full House on contempt would send a criminal referral to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia \u2014 a Justice Department official who is likely to defend the administration’s interests. But even if the U.S. attorney declines to prosecute, Democrats could pursue other avenues in court.<\/p>\n

In a letter sent to the committee late Wednesday, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd laid out a list of reasons that the department won’t provide the full\u00a0Mueller\u00a0report or all the underlying evidence. Boyd said the special counsel’s investigative files include \u201cmillions of pages of classified and unclassified documents, bearing upon more than two dozen criminal cases and investigations, many of which are ongoing.\u201d Boyd also reiterated that the department would not disclose secret grand jury material, another battle that could end up in court if Nadler decides to fight it.<\/p>\n

The Justice Department has already made a less-redacted version of the report available for a small number of lawmakers, including Nadler and Pelosi, but Democrats have so far declined to read it, saying they want the entire report released to a wider audience.<\/p>\n

Republicans have objected to Nadler’s demands and say the staff questioning is unnecessary. They argue that Democrats are trying to have impeachment hearings without going through the official process of impeachment.<\/p>\n

\u201cChairman Nadler sabotaged his own hearing,\u201d Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., said after Barr cancelled. \u201cThat’s sad. Because now Republicans and Democrats are not going to be able to question Bill Barr.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 Attorney General William Barr has informed lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee that he will skip a hearing …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":212382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-212381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-mary-clare-jalonick","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212383,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212381\/revisions\/212383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}