House Democrats schedule vote to hold Barr, McGahn in contempt

June 4, 2019

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The House will vote to hold William Barr and Donald McGahn in contempt of Congress next week, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) announced Monday. The contempt vote marks an escalation in the Democrats’ war with President Donald Trump and his attorney general over the special counsel’s probe.

The House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Barr in contempt of Congress last month over his refusal to hand over Robert Mueller’s unredacted report, but the contempt vote has not yet been taken up on the House floor. Democrats also threatened to hold former White House counsel McGahn in contempt for defying a congressional subpoena.

Mueller officially closed out his collusion investigation last week, as Barr and Trump ramp up efforts to investigate the investigators — but Democrats are apparently hoping to keep the Trump-Russia hoax alive by hyping baseless contempt charges and other partisan circus tricks.

House contempt vote

At a surprise press conference Wednesday, Mueller repeated the primary conclusions from his report: that he did not find evidence to charge Trump with collusion and did not make a decision on obstruction of justice. But some Democrats interpreted Mueller’s statement that indicting Trump was “not an option” as an “impeachment referral.”

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Taking a cue from Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Hoyer announced Monday that the Democrats will pursue a less drastic course for now with possible contempt charges against Barr and McGahn. The contempt votes, to be held next Tuesday, would allow the Democrats to say they are doing something to hold Trump “accountable” without risking the overreach of impeachment. Pelosi has consistently pushed back against cries for impeachment from within her caucus.

Unwilling to risk impeachment, Democrats have so far settled on pursuing the president in the name of “oversight” with bad-faith subpoenas. Hoyer said that the contempt votes would allow the House Judiciary Committee, which is seeking Mueller’s report, and other Democrat-led committees to seek civil action to enforce their subpoenas, which Democrats say are necessary to counter Trump’s “cover up.”

“This Administration’s systematic refusal to provide Congress with answers and cooperate with Congressional subpoenas is the biggest cover-up in American history, and Congress has a responsibility to provide oversight on behalf of the American people,” Hoyer said.

The Democrats will seek civil contempt rather than “inherent contempt” as they previously discussed. With inherent contempt, Congress can arrest or fine a witness on its own without pursuing criminal charges or civil action.

 

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attacks on the attorney general over an alleged “cover up” of the Mueller report, which has been available to the public, with redactions, since April. Barr’s Justice Department has said that the redacted material includes sensitive grand jury material that he is legally barred from releasing. At any rate, the Democrats have given little reason to believe they are seeking the redacted information for a legitimate purpose.

An attempt at diversion

Without demonstrating good faith or providing reasons for their demands, the Democrats have demanded Mueller’s unredacted report, Trump’s tax returns and bank records, and witness testimony from Trump officials in the name of “oversight.” Democrats threatened to hold McGahn in contempt after he skipped a House Judiciary hearing last month on Trump’s orders, which Democrats portrayed as part of a wider “cover up.”

The Democrats’ continued investigations are a partisan attempt to “re-do” the Mueller probe, Trump said. The “re-do” lives on, even after Mueller, in his first and last remarks on his investigation, defended Barr’s “good faith” in his decision to make the Mueller report “largely public.” The contempt votes appear to be the latest Democrat attempt to keep the collusion hoax alive past its expiration date.

But contempt charges may not satisfy pro-impeachment Democrats, particularly after Mueller declined to exonerate the president. Mueller gave an unclear judgment on whether Trump obstructed justice, and even appeared to wink at Congress, saying, “the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system” to indict a president.

At the same time, Mueller denied Democrats a dramatic opportunity to attack Trump when he announced that he will not testify before Congress, saying that his report speaks for itself and that his brief remarks will be all the elaboration the public can expect from him. Not missing a beat, circus ringleader House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who sought Mueller’s testimony for weeks, announced that his panel will hold a series of hearings on the Mueller report starting Monday.

Nadler’s not going for subtlety. He has his optics in order, with President Richard Nixon’s former White House Counsel John Dean set to appear at the first hearing.

Investigating the investigators

Meanwhile, as Democrats look to keep the focus on the Mueller probe, Barr and Trump have redoubled efforts to “investigate the investigators.” Barr appointed a U.S. attorney last month to oversee the investigation into whether politics played a role in the intelligence agencies’ surveillance of the Trump campaign and Russia.

Barr, who is facing mounting attacks from Democrats over his investigation, told CBS Friday that he has more questions than answers after beginning his review. Barr indicated that he is troubled by signs of impropriety in the origins of the Russia probe, although he has not formally accused the intelligence community of spying on the Trump campaign without warrant.

Barr unfazed by critics

While Trump angrily blasted the Democrats’ continued “presidential harassment,” Barr remains generally unfazed by the Democrats’ political circus. The attorney general has responded to Democrats’ attacks on his character with calm humor, asking Pelosi at an event in Washington last month whether she brought handcuffs to arrest him. And Barr got philosophical when he told CBS that he wasn’t bothered by the mudslinging, since “everyone dies.”

Barr said he expected to be attacked when he took the job and that he’s indifferent to the smears, since he’s at the end of his career. “Everything is gauged by politics” Barr said. “And, as I said, that’s antithetical to how the department runs, and any attorney general in this period is going to end up losing a lot of political capital, and I realize that and that’s one of the reasons that I was ultimately persuaded, that maybe I should take it on because I think that [at] my stage in life it really doesn’t make any difference.”