Attorney General William Barr skipped a House hearing Thursday on special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia report, escalating an already acrimonious battle between Democrats and President Donald Trump’s Justice Department. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Barr had already lied to Congress in other testimony and called that a
WASHINGTON — Attorney General William Barr skipped a House hearing Thursday on special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia report, escalating an already acrimonious battle between Democrats and President Donald Trump’s Justice Department. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Barr had already lied to Congress in other testimony and called that a « crime. »
Barr’s decision to avoid the hearing, made after a disagreement with the House Judiciary Committee over questioning, came the day after the department also missed the committee’s deadline to provide it with a full, unredacted version of Mueller’s report and its underlying evidence. In all, it’s likely to prompt a vote on holding Barr in contempt and possibly the issuance of subpoenas, bringing House Democrats and the Trump administration closer to a prolonged battle in court.
Democrats convened a short hearing that included an empty chair with a place card set for Barr. Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York said that if the attorney general doesn’t provide the committee « with the information it demands and the respect that it deserves, Mr. Barr’s moment of accountability will come soon enough. »
Shortly afterward, Pelosi escalated the tensions further. In possible reference to the attorney general’s testimony last month, Pelosi said Barr « was not telling the truth to the Congress of the United States — that’s a crime. »
Barr told senators on April 10 that he didn’t know whether Mueller agreed with his conclusions about the report, including Barr’s assertion that Mueller hadn’t found enough evidence to support a charge of obstruction of justice. Democrats have raised questions about that testimony since it was revealed this week that Mueller had written Barr on March 27 complaining that the attorney general had not properly portrayed his findings in a four-page memo summarizing the report’s main conclusions.
