House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday accused the top US law-enforcement officer of committing a crime by lying to Congress, escalating the showdown between…
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday accused the top US law-enforcement officer of committing a crime by lying to Congress, escalating the showdown between Donald Trump’s administration and the Democrats investigating him.
Pelosi levelled the rare charge after Attorney General Bill Barr skipped out on his scheduled testimony before a House of Representatives panel eager to probe his handling of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Infuriated Democrats quickly threatened to censure him for contempt.
Barr, in the job since February, had been grilled a day earlier in the Republican-led Senate, where Democrats accused him of whitewashing Mueller’s report in order to protect Trump.
But he was a no-show at a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, after its leadership announced it would have lawyers cross-examine him following a round of questioning by the panel’s elected members.
Barr’s absence appeared to antagonize Pelosi, Trump’s Democratic nemesis in Congress, who accused the attorney general of misleading lawmakers.
“He lied to Congress,” Pelosi said, apparently referring to Barr’s testimony under oath before lawmakers in April. “That’s a crime.”
In that hearing, Barr claimed not to know whether Mueller supported his controversial memo summarizing the report and said he did not know why members of Mueller’s team would be frustrated over the summary.
