House Democrats vote to take Barr, McGahn to court to enforce subpoenas

House Democrats are turning their subpoena threats up another notch.

On Tuesday, the House voted 229-191 on a resolution to take its subpoenas of Attorney General William Barr and former White House counsel Don McGahn to federal court. The party line vote will let the House Judiciary Committee challenge Barr and McGahn's noncompliance with the committee's requests for their testimonies and documents, but doesn't formally charge the two with contempt.

As NPR puts it, Tuesday's vote "clears the way for more lawsuits against Cabinet departments, administration officials, bankers, accountants, and more." But it also represents a retreat from previous promises to hold Barr in contempt after he failed to show up for a House hearing last month. It also pales in comparison to some Democrats' calls to impeach Barr altogether.

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The move comes just a day after Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) announced he'd reached a deal with the DOJ to see previously withheld "key evidence" from the Mueller report. Nadler said in a Monday release that he'd give the DOJ time to comply with the deal before moving to "enforce our subpoena in court," but that didn't seem to apply to the subpoenas issued directly to Barr and McGahn that were in question Tuesday.