Breaking: House Judiciary Committee holds attorney general in contempt of Congress, escalating fight between Trump and House Democrats
By Rachael Bade , Rachael Bade Congressional reporter Email Bio Follow Carol D. Leonnig and Carol D. Leonnig National investigative reporter focused on the White House and government accountability Email Bio Follow Matt Zapotosky Matt Zapotosky National security reporter covering the Justice Department Email Bio Follow May 8 at 4:34 PM President Trump formally asserted executive privilege over special counsel Robert S.
The White House’s use of the rare presidential secrecy prerogative stood in stark contrast to Trump and his allies’ frequent boast of “total exoneration” for the president from the Mueller report. Democrats have argued that if Trump really had nothing to hide, he and Barr wouldn’t be blocking so many of their investigations — including Mueller’s complete findings.
The move against Barr represented just the second time in history that a sitting attorney general would be held in contempt of Congress; the Republican-led House admonished Attorney General Eric Holder in 2012 over his failure to provide documents to Congress. The assertion of privilege was broad — covering all of the underlying materials from Mueller’s investigation, such as reports of interviews and notes of witnesses, as well as the entire, unredacted Mueller report. The Justice Department considered it important for the White House to assert executive privilege before the House vote on contempt because, in their view, doing so would effectively invalidate the citation, a person familiar with the matter said.
Republicans used their time to defend Barr’s name and tried to divert the conversation back to the origins of the Russia investigation, accusing the FBI of being guided by anti-Trump bias. Barr sent a written request to Trump Wednesday morning asking him to assert privilege because the Judiciary Committee had “declined to grant sufficient time” for the Justice Department to review the Mueller materials, which included law enforcement information, information about intelligence sources and methods and grand jury material that would be illegal to release.
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