Barr gaslights like an abusive ex husband. Dude, I’m so pissed.
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I’ll save you some time, Barr is a Trump crony, who thinks the President is above the law. He should have never have been confirmed in the first place.
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The White House has rejected a House committee’s request for documents related to possible abuses of the security clearance system.
The request came after accusations that the Trump administration granted security clearances to more than two dozen officials over the objections of career officials.
White House counsel Pat Cipollone called the House Oversight Committee’s attempts to obtain FBI background investigation files “highly improper” and that it shows a “total disregard for individual privacy,” according to a nine-page letter dated Wednesday and obtained by POLITICO.
“Respectfully, it is not within the authority of Congress to second guess how the President selects his advisors or who has access to the information necessary to provide the President with fully-informed advice,” Cipollone wrote to Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.).
While career officials give recommendations on whether individuals are eligible for a security clearance, the president has the ultimate authority on the matter.
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Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are discussing holding Attorney General William P. Barr in contempt of Congress, according to several lawmakers and officials familiar with the plan.
During a pair of closed-door meetings Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, the committee decided that it would probably make a push for a Barr contempt citation if he skips a scheduled Thursday hearing or ignores their subpoena for the full report by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.
Lawmakers and officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss private deliberations, cautioned that no final decision has been made. Barr has until the end of the day to hand over the full Mueller report but is not expected to comply.
Update: Attorney General William Barr declines to testify before House panel, says Judiciary Committee aide
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And here’s additional reporting from CNN. Nadler is now confirming that Barr has refused to appear.
OK, House Democratis, enough is enough – so these are the next steps:
Step 1 - Contempt charges for Barr. Step 2 - Impeach Barr.
Nadler has also said May 15 is a possible date for Mueller’s testimony, but it’s not confirmed.
Attorney General William Barr is no longer expected to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, chairman Jerry Nadler announced.
The decision comes after Democrats on the committee demanded that Barr face questions from the committee’s lawyers.
Nadler said in comments to reporters Wednesday on Capitol Hill that they are looking at May 15 as a possible date for special counsel Robert Mueller to testify.
The committee voted earlier Wednesday to allow staff to question Barr during his hearing on the special counsel’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The vote was 21 to 14.
"I don’t know what he’s afraid of," Nadler said earlier.
Nadler asks: What is Barr afraid of? My answer: Going to prison – just like Attorney General John Mitchell did when he obstructed justice for Richard Nixon.
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And that’s a crime.
House Democrats, decrying what they called an erosion of American democracy, threatened on Thursday to hold Attorney General William P. Barr in contempt of Congress after he failed to appear at a hearing of the Judiciary Committee and ignored a subpoena deadline to hand over Robert S. Mueller III’s full report and evidence.
“What is deadly serious about it is the attorney general of the United States of America was not telling the truth to the Congress of the United States,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters, referring to a House hearing in which he said he was unaware that the special counsel had protested his portrayal of his conclusions. “And that’s a crime.”
Convening in a nearly empty hearing room despite his absence, the Judiciary Committee’s chairman, Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, called on Republicans to join Democrats in standing up for the rights of Congress against an administration that he said was trying to “make it that much harder for us to hold the executive branch accountable.”
But mostly he trained his ire at the attorney general, who objected to Mr. Nadler’s insistence that staff lawyers be allowed to ask questions at the hearing.
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Rep. Steve Cohen, a Tennessee Democrat, brought in a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and a ceramic chicken, sharing his food with his Democratic colleagues.
"Chicken Barr should have shown up today and answered questions," he told reporters while holding the ceramic chicken.
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OK – good. But let’s not just threaten, let’s do it! Now!
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Former White House personnel security director Carl Kline took responsibility for a security clearance process criticized for overruling multiple recommended denials for senior government officials, according to members of Congress who privately interviewed Kline on Wednesday.
“He’s basically trying to say that the buck pretty much stopped with him,” said House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat. “There’s much more information that we need to dig into.”
Tricia Newbold, whom Democrats describe as a whistleblower, has accused Kline of approving security clearances for White House officials despite recommended denials, including for the President’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner. In 2018, Trump reportedly directed his then-chief of staff John Kelly to give Kushner a top-secret security clearance.
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President Donald Trump said Thursday that he did not want former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify before Congress about allegations that the president obstructed justice.
“Congress shouldn‘t be looking anymore. This is all. It‘s done,“ Trump told Fox News. “Nobody has ever done what I‘ve done. I‘ve given total transparency. It‘s never happened before like this. They shouldn‘t be looking anymore. It‘s done.“
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House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler is making what he calls a final “counter offer” to Attorney General William Barr’s refusal to grant immediate access to the underlying evidence in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
In a new letter to Barr on Friday, Nadler (D-N.Y.) is giving the Justice Department until 9 a.m. Monday to comply with his adjusted request before moving forward with an effort to hold Barr in contempt of Congress for defying a committee subpoena demanding Mueller’s full unredacted report and underlying documents by May 1.
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This letter is spot on. Two paragraphs at the end especially stood out to me. First, Nadler exposes that the DoJ’s stonewalling of the Judiciary Committee’s requests for documents is baseless, considering that the DoJ recently turned over mountains of documents during the Clinton e-mail investigations (emphasis is mine):
Accommodation requires negotiation that takes into account the legitimate interests and responsibilities of both Congress and the Department. Your proposed conditions are a departure from accommodations made by previous Attorneys General of both parties. As recently as last Congress, the Department produced more than 880,000 pages of sensitive investigative materials pertaining to its investigation of Hillary Clinton, as well as much other material relating to the then-ongoing Russia investigation. That production included highly classified material, notes from FBI interviews, internal text messages, and law enforcement memoranda. The volume of documents cited in the Special Counsel’s report is surely smaller, and the Committee is willing to work with the Department to prioritize production of materials even within that defined category. Additionally, in the most recent prior instance in which the Department conducted an investigation of a sitting President, Kenneth Starr produced a 445-page report to Congress along with 18 boxes of accompanying evidence.
Next, Nadler unequivocally establishes Congress’s absolute right to investigate the President (emphasis is mine):
Lastly, it cannot go unremarked that, in refusing to comply with congressional oversight requests, the Department has repeatedly asserted that Congress’s requests do not serve “legitimate” purposes. This is not the Department’s judgment to make. Congress’s constitutional, oversight and legislative interest in investigating misconduct by the President and his associates cannot be disputed. The Committee has ample jurisdiction under House Rule X(l)to conduct oversight of the Department, undertake necessary investigations, and consider legislation regarding the federal obstruction of justice statutes, campaign-related crimes, and special counsel investigations, among other things.
By writing this “final notice letter” and setting a Monday morning deadline, Nadler is expertly walking a fine line between 1) demonstrating to the courts that he is giving Barr ample opportunity to comply and 2) moving expeditiously towards contempt proceedings. 
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Here’s some encouraging historical context from Michael Beschloss, presidential historian and contributor to MSNBC and PBS. This headline from 45 years ago reminds us that when the White House rejects subpoenas, it may result in some sensationalistic reporting, but it is ultimately a futile gesture, doomed to failure.
Reading this NYT article back in 1974, you might be persuaded that Nixon’s rejection of subpoenas was going to shut down the entire Watergate investigation, yet it turned out to be hardly a bump in the road. From Wikipedia:
The [Watergate] scandal led to the discovery of multiple abuses of power by members of the Nixon administration, the commencement of an impeachment process against the president and Nixon’s resignation. The scandal also resulted in the indictment of 69 people, with trials or pleas resulting in 48 being found guilty, many of whom were top Nixon officials.
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This story has changed since this morning…
Am:
A key member of the House Judiciary Committee said Sunday that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has tentatively agreed to testify on May 15.
The committee has been seeking to hear from Mueller amid disagreements about whether Attorney General William P. Barr mischaracterized the special counsel’s report in his congressional testimony and statements.
Rep. David N. Cicilline (D-R.I.) said on “Fox News Sunday” that the panel and Mueller’s representative had reached a tentative agreement for his testimony.
PM:
President Trump said Sunday that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III should not testify before Congress, reversing course from his previous position that the decision is up to Attorney General William P. Barr.
“Bob Mueller should not testify,” Trump said in an afternoon tweet. “No redos for the Dems!”
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Some observations:
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If Mueller exonerated Trump (as Trump falsely claims) then shouldn’t Trump welcome his testimony? Instead, Trump is desperately amping up his efforts to hide his crimes.
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For the umpteenth time, Trump screams “NO OBSTRUCTION” in all caps, but Mueller never said there was no obstruction. On the contrary, Mueller documented 10 potential acts of obstruction – he did not rule on whether or not they were actually acts of obstruction because it is against DoJ policy to indict a sitting President. It will be up to Congress to make the ruling. Bottom line: If Trump were not President, he would already be indicted.
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Trump says there should be no “redos.” What redos? Mueller’s testimony is not a “redo,” it is a confirmation of his findings. Impeachment proceedings would also not be a “redo,” they would be a continuation of an established process: 1) Investigation --> 2) Findings that expose criminal acts --> 3) Impeachment. We are currently wrapping up Step 2.
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Trump’s reversal here plays to his beloved bait and switch strategy. Time and again he’ll score some quick points with his base by announcing he’s going to do one thing; then later he’ll do exactly the opposite, knowing that most of his base will continue to recall only his original promise. Before the election, he promised he would release his tax returns; now he says he’ll never release them. He said he would be happy to be interviewed by Mueller; then he refused. He claimed his tax plan would hurt the wealthy; then he handed the wealthy one of the biggest tax breaks in history. Etc., etc.
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He says $35 million was spent on the investigation, but fails to mention that it will break even since Mueller has confiscated at least that amount from Manafort’s ill-gotten gains. And let’s not forget that Trump has spent more than $64 million on his trips to Mar-a-Lago.
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Finally, and most depressing to me, the President of our nation yet again sounds like a little baby throwing a tantrum. You can read his infantile rant in the article – I’m too embarrassed to reproduce here.
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Yeah, same.
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As a matter of principle, I avoid reading his tweets whenever possible. I also do not think the media should give then & the name calling any traction.
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House Judiciary Committee will take a vote on Wednesday to hold Atty General Barr in contempt. Go get him…
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