Still more bickering as Barr skips hearing
House Judiciary Committee members are left to fight among themselves
WASHINGTON – Attorney General William Barr made good Thursday on his threat to skip a House hearing into Russian interference in the 2016 election, so lawmakers battled one another instead.
The confrontation is the latest escalation of tensions between President Donald Trump’s administration and the House of Representatives, which has opened wide-ranging investigations of the president. Trump said his administration plans to fight lawmakers’ demands for information and has gone to court to block some of them.
Barr refused to testify before the House Judiciary Committee about special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report because the committee agreed to add an hour of questions by staff lawyers. The hearing was to have been his second day of testimony about the investigation and his handling of the special counsel’s final report. Barr spent four hours before a Senate panel Wednesday.
Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., accused the Trump administration of ignoring subpoenas and refusing to testify, a pattern he said reflects an effort to prevent Congress “from providing any check whatsoever to even his most reckless decisions.”
“The challenge we face is that if we don’t stand up to him together, today, then we risk forever losing the power to stand up to any president in the future,” Nadler said.
Nadler said Barr didn’t attend because he was afraid of being questioned by trained lawyers. Rep. Steve Cohen, DTenn., walked into the House hearing room with a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and noshed on a drumstick to mark Barr’s absence.
The top Republican on the panel, Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, called the meeting a “circus political stunt” that prevented Barr’s testimony for lawmakers of either party. “They want it to look like an impeachment hearing because they won’t bring impeachment proceedings,” he said.
The clash marked the latest confrontation over congressional investigations into President Donald Trump and his administration. Lawmakers contend they are being stonewalled across a variety of inquiries by an administration that ignores subpoenas and avoids testimony, but Trump says the partisan requests are presidential harassment.
The Justice Department refused Wednesday to provide an unredacted version of the Mueller report to Congress despite the subpoena deadline. Barr redacted portions dealing with grand jury testimony, information about pending cases, intelligence gathering secrets and information that could infringe on the privacy of people who weren’t charged.
Congressional Democrats insisted they deserve to receive the full report and the underlying information that Mueller’s team gathered during 22 months. In a Justice Department letter Wednesday to Nadler, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd said the committee has not “articulated any legislative purpose for its request” for documents relating to Mueller’s investigation.
“The committee has no legitimate role in demanding law enforcement materials with the aim of simply duplicating a criminal inquiry – which is, of course, a function that the Constitution entrusts exclusively to the executive branch,” Boyd wrote.
Nadler said in an opening statement facing an empty chair for Barr that lawmakers must come together to protect the integrity of the House.
“Every member of this committee should understand the consequences when the executive branch informs us that they will simply ignore a congressional subpoena,” Nadler said. “The challenge we face is also bigger than the Mueller report.”
Collins said Democrats wanted a circus rather than to pose questions to Barr. “Not hearing from him is a travesty for this committee today,” he said.
After Thursday’s abbreviated hearing, Democrats said they supported Nadler’s plan to negotiate with the Justice Department for “a few more days” to obtain the full report.