The House Judiciary Committee has voted to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for ignoring a subpoena to provide the Special Counsel’s full report on Russian interference in the U.S presidential election 2016 and all of its underlying evidence. Barr defied the subpoena after the U.S Department of Justice claimed there was no basis for the request and threatened to urge Donald Trump to invoke executive privilege over the report in a scathing letter sent to the U.S Congress. Voting to hold the attorney general in contempt lays the foundation for Congress to file a civil lawsuit, as well as a criminal referral to be sent to the US attorney’s office in Washington.
It was the first time the Democratic-led House of Representatives has held a vote on holding a member of the president’s administration in contempt of U.S Congress. A later vote on whether to hold the attorney general in contempt was expected after a markup vote passed on party lines. Moments after the House voted to hold Barr in contempt, the Justice Department sent a letter to House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler saying the “president has asserted executive privilege over the entirety of the subpoenaed materials”. Nadler said on Wednesday that his committee was still open to reasonable offers from the U.S Justice Department surrounding its compliance with the subpoenas despite the vote. He said, “This is not a step we take lightly”. He also described Trump’s attempts to invoke executive privilege over the report.
The White House immediately tweeted after Wednesday’s vote, “The American people see through Chairman Nadler’s desperate ploy to distract from the President’s historically successful agenda and our booming economy. Neither the White House nor Attorney General Barr will comply with Chairman Nadler’s unlawful and reckless demands”. The White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also described Nadler holding the vote as a “blatant abuse of power”. Sanders said, “Faced with Chairman Nadler’s blatant abuse of power, and at the Attorney General’s request, the President has no other option than to make a protective assertion of executive privilege”.