House Democrats are moving forward with a contempt citation for Attorney General William Barr

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 6 May 2019

Attorney General William Barr missed — or, possibly, ignored — the House Judiciary Committee's Monday morning deadline for turning over an unredacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on his investigation into 2016 Russian election interference, as well as the underlying evidence.

As a result, Congress on Wednesday will consider a contempt citation against Barr, who also did not attend a scheduled hearing before the Judiciary Committee last Thursday. House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said Barr's failure to comply with the requests leaves Congress "with no choice but to initiate contempt proceedings."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Rep. Doug Collins (R-Georgia), the Judiciary Committee's top Republican, said Nadler's decision on contempt is "illogical and disingenuous" because the Justice Department is still negotiating with the committee on how to proceed. Collins called the situation a "proxy war" and that the committee's Democrats are simply taking out their anger at President Trump and Mueller on Barr, who Collins said would be breaking the law if he fulfilled the subpoena requests. The Justice Department has stated that revealing grand jury material in response to congressional oversight is illegal, The Washington Post reports.

Explore More

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.

Subscribe to The Week

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox