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May 8, 2019. House Democrats on the Judiciary Committee voted to find Attorney General William Barr in contempt for not complying with the panel’s subpoenas to provide documents related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report.

House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan (R): “I don’t think today is actually about getting information, I don’t think it’s about getting the unredacted Mueller report. I don’t think last week’s hearing was actually about having staff question the attorney general. I think it’s all about trying to destroy Bill Barr because Democrats are nervous he’s going to get to the bottom of everything. He’s going to find out how and why this investigation started in the first place.”

Matt Gaetz (R): “My good friend from Georgia just asked the operative question. How can we impeach if we don’t get the documents? How can we impeach if we don’t get the documents? Ladies and gentlemen, this hearing is not about the Attorney General. It is not about the Mueller report.” “This is all about impeaching the President.”

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D): “Seventeen different intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered with our election, attacked our democracy for the sole purpose of artificially placing someone at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” said Jeffries, the House Democratic Caucus chair. “They were successful, and that’s also what the Mueller report shows.”

The vote passed along party lines, 24-16, after six hours of contentious debate on the topic. The contempt resolution will now go to the full House for a vote, where it is expected to pass, given the Democratic majority.

Shortly before vote proceedings began Wednesday morning, the president asserted privilege over the entire Mueller report and underlying documents. Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said in his opening statement that the administration was “misapplying the doctrine of executive privilege,” and called the decision a “clear escalation in the Trump administration’s blanket defiance” of the constitutional duties of Congress.
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Release from Matt Gaetz
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz (FL-01) today attended the U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing on the “Committee Report for Resolution Recommending that the House of Representatives Find William P. Barr, Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, in Contempt of Congress.” During the hearing, Rep. Gaetz spoke out against Democrats’ desperate attempts to vilify the Attorney General, noting that it would be illegal for the Attorney General to turn over the documents subpoenaed by Democrats.

Congressman Gaetz has been vocal in defending the President against the baseless accusations of “Russian collusion” levied by the Democrats for the past two years. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, released last month, revealed that there was no collusion, conspiracy, or coordination between members of the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

TRANSCRIPT

Rep. Gaetz: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Glad to see the microphone is working this week. My good friend from Georgia just asked the operative question. How can we impeach if we don’t get the documents? How can we impeach if we don’t get the documents?

Ladies and gentlemen, this hearing is not about the Attorney General. It is not about the Mueller report. 92% of which everyone in America has had the opportunity to read. It is not about the fact that even the portions that the American people haven’t been able to read, the Chairman has been able to read had he chosen.

This is all about impeaching the President. Now, why don’t they just say it? Why don’t they just jump to the impeachment proceedings like their liberal media overlords are telling them to do? The reason is the American people don’t support impeachment and it is easy to understand why. They went and elected Donald Trump, President of the United States.

I don’t think people are going to support impeaching a president who is doing so well. You’ve got 3.2% growth in the economy. The Trump economy is hot. The reason we’re doing so well is consequence of the President’s policies and so at a time when my democrat colleagues are focused on the next election and not solutions to the problems facing Americans, they can’t attack the President’s policies.

People are doing well. So typically, they role next to identity politics based on what you look like, who you pray to or love you can’t possibly support Republicans. But African-Americans are doing better, Hispanics are doing better, women are doing better.

We’re seeing a rising tide that is lifting all boats in this country. Now we have this effort not to argue with policies, not to typically go to the identity politics that functions as the organizing principle of today’s Democratic party. They have to delegitimize the guy people voted for but they don’t have the guts to do it directly, so they go after the Attorney General.

The gentleman from Georgia said we’re hiding behind the rules. Hiding behind the rules? These are federal laws that dictate what the Attorney General can and cannot do. We are not hiding behind the rules.

We just like to follow them. It is not following the rules that got us into trouble in the first place. When the Inspector General testified before us he said it is the fundamental fact that during the investigations of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump you saw continuous examples of a one off here, a violation of protocol there.

The Inspect General said he had never seen the very same team investigating Hillary Clinton would then investigate the other person that was involved in the 2016 Presidential contest. About a month ago in this committee, I laid out the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

I think folks watching at home can follow along and see where we’re headed. First the Democratic colleagues were in denial. When they saw there was no collusion after saying for 22 months that the President was an agent of the Russian government and that there was actual evidence of collusion, they were in denial when they saw the conclusion that there wasn’t.

Then there was anger. It had to be the Attorney General’s fault. Mueller didn’t make a decision on obstruction. Somebody had to, and the Attorney General did. They got mad at him and a lot of anger. The third step, bargaining.

Well, Mr. Attorney General, you’ve given us 92% of the Mueller report. But we have to bargain for the remaining 8%. That’s where we think the action is. Well, Mr. Attorney General, you spent five hours before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Three of our Presidential candidates got to question you.

You offered to come before the House Judiciary Committee to come for an additional hour of questioning. We have to bargain so our staff lawyers can ask you questions. Now, I don’t think it’s a good sign that the next sign after bargaining is depression. So, I feel for my Democrat colleagues but after that we get to acceptance and that’s sure something that I’m looking forward to because there is some really good ideas that my Democratic colleagues have once they get to acceptance on the no Russia collusion thing.

My friend from Rhode Island has a great idea to – my colleague from the state of New York is right if the First Step Act is the only step act then that would be a bad thing. We need to do more on criminal justice reform.

My colleague, who is not with us from California, Mr. Swalwell, he has great ideas to unlock potential medical can business reforms. I have a bunch of my friends on the other side of the aisle that there are actual bills that would impact the lives of Americans would get heard instead of this garbage.

The Obama Administration ran an intel operation against the Trump campaign. Peter Strzok opened it up, the dossier kept it going, and now the democrats need to get over it. I yield back.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)
At the House Judiciary Committee hearing where the Democrats voted to hold Barr in contempt for his refusal to release the un-redacted version of the Mueller Report, Jordan said, “Bill Barr is following the law. What’s his reward? Democrats are going to hold him in contempt. I don’t think today actually is about getting information. I don’t think it’s about getting the un-redacted Mueller report.”

“I think it’s all about trying to destroy Bill Barr because Democrats are nervous he’s going to get to the bottom of everything,” said Jordan. “He’s going to find out how and why this investigation started in the first place.”

“Never forget what Bill Barr said a few weeks ago when he testified in front of the Senate Finance Committee,” said Jordan. “First, he said there was a failure in leadership at the upper echelon of the FBI. We all know that’s the case. Director Comey’s been fired. Deputy Director McCabe fired, lied three times under oath, according to the Inspector General. FBI Counsel Jim Baker demoted and left, currently under investigation by the Justice Department. Lisa Page, demoted and left. Peter Strzok, deputy head of counter-intelligence, demoted and fired — Peter Strzok, the guy who ran the Clinton investigation and the Russia investigation. There was certainly a failure of leadership at the upper echelon of the FBI.”

Jordan, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, continued, “Second thing the attorney general said … spying did occur. He said it twice. Yes, spying did occur. … He [also] said, in his judgment, he thinks there may have been unauthorized surveillance and political surveillance. Scary terms.”

“We’ve got to go back to January 3rd, 2017,” said Jordan. “Senator Schumer on the Rachel Maddow Show talking about then-President-elect Trump says this, ‘If you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you.’ … I sure know they [FBI]went after him [Trump] in two ways.”

“The first one is the now-famous dossier,” said Jordan. “On October 21, 2016, the FBI used one party’s opposition research document as the basis to go to a secret court to get a warrant to spy on the other party’s campaign. That happened. Democratic National Committee, the Clinton campaign paid Perkins Coie law firm , who hired Fusion GPS, who then hired a foreigner, Christopher Steele, who did what – talked to Russians and put together this salacious, unverified document, that became the basis to spy on the Trump campaign.”

“They did it,” the FBI, said Jordan.

“And when they went to the court, they didn’t tell them important things like who paid for it,” said the Ohio congressman. “They didn’t tell them that Christopher Steele had already told the FBI and the Justice Department that he was quote ‘desperate to stop Trump.’ And they didn’t tell the court that Christopher Steele had been fired by the FBI because he’s out talking to the press. They [FBI] did that.

“Second, just last Thursday, New York Times story, FBI sent investigator posing as an assistant to meet with the Trump aide in 2016,” reported Jordan. “The FBI sent someone in, pretending to be somebody else, to talk with George Papadopoulos who was with the Trump campaign.”

“You know what they call that?” said Jordan. “You know what they call that? It’s called spying. They did it. They did it twice and who knows how much more – and what I know is [Attorney General] Bill Barr’s said he’s going to get to the bottom of it.”

From House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler
Washington, D.C. – Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) delivered the following opening remarks during a markup of a committee report and resolution recommending that the U.S. House of Representatives find Attorney General William Barr in contempt for refusal to comply with a subpoena duly issued by the Committee on the Judiciary for the full, unredacted Mueller report:

“Today we consider a report recommending that the House of Representatives hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for defying a valid subpoena issued by this Committee. This is not a step we take lightly.

“It is the culmination of nearly three months of requests, discussions, and negotiations with the Department of Justice for the complete, unredacted report by Special Counsel Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 election, along with the underlying evidence.

“I appreciate the fact that the Department responded to the offer we made to them last week and met with us yesterday in a last minute effort to reach an accommodation. We heard the Department out, we responded to them in good faith, and after all was said and done, we, unfortunately, were still unable to reach agreement, and we proceeded with our markup today.

“As I have said before, we remain ready and willing to consider any reasonable offer made by the Department, even after today’s vote. But, if a letter I received late last night from the Department is any indication, I am concerned that the Department is heading in the wrong direction.

“In response to our latest good-faith offer, the Department abruptly announced that if we move forward today, it would ask President Trump to invoke what it refers to as a protective assertion of executive privilege on all of the materials subject to our subpoena. Just minutes ago, it took that dramatic step.

“Besides misapplying the doctrine of executive privilege—since the White House waived these privileges long ago, and the Department seemed open to sharing these materials with us just yesterday—this decision represents a clear escalation in the Trump Administration’s blanket defiance of Congress’s constitutionally mandated duties.

“I hope that the Department will think better of this last minute outburst and return to negotiations. As a co-equal branch of government, we must have access to the materials that we need to fulfill our constitutional responsibilities in a manner consistent with past precedent.

“This is information we are legally entitled to receive and we are constitutionally obligated to review. And I would remind the Members that the Mueller report is no ordinary, run of the mill document—it details significant misconduct involving the President, including his campaign’s willingness and eagerness to accept help from a hostile foreign government, numerous misstatements if not outright lies concerning those acts, and 11 separate incidents of obstructive behavior by the President that more than 700 former prosecutors have told us warrant criminal indictment. If Congress is not entitled to the full unredacted Mueller report, one must wonder what document we would be entitled to.

“Our exhaustive negotiations with the Department of Justice have, unfortunately, left us back where we began—with unprecedented obstruction by an Administration that has now announced its intention to block all attempts at congressional oversight of the Executive Branch. It is our constitutional duty to respond.

“Let me be clear: the information we are requesting is entirely within our legal rights to receive and is no different from what has been provided to Congress on numerous occasions, going back nearly a century.

“But we do not need to go back that far to find a precedent. As recently as last Congress, under Republican control, the Department produced more than 880,000 pages of sensitive investigative materials pertaining to its investigation of Hillary Clinton, as well as voluminous other material relating to the Russia investigation, and other ongoing criminal investigations. That production included highly classified material, notes from FBI interviews, internal text messages, and law enforcement memoranda.

“With respect to grand jury information, in past cases involving allegations of presidential misconduct, or misconduct by other high-ranking public officials, the DOJ, as a matter of course, has sought the permission of a court to release relevant information to Congress, if not to the public. Notably, this includes several cases that were not impeachment inquiries—including the investigation into former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy and the Iran-Contra investigations—as well as other investigations that were not governed by the independent counsel law.

“But, no matter the fact that the law and history clearly support the release to Congress of this kind of information, the Trump Administration has taken obstruction of Congress to new heights. Unfortunately, the Attorney General has been all too willing to support the President in this endeavor.

“I would also like to respond to two of the concerns often raised by my good friend, the Ranking Member. He asks: how can the Committee hold the Attorney General in contempt for merely complying with the laws on the books? And how can we hold him in contempt when I have refused an offer to allow me to see certain redacted portions of the report?

“The answers are simple. First, we issued a valid subpoena for the full report and all of the underlying evidence. The Department has come nowhere close to satisfying its obligations under that subpoena.

The Department has never cited a legal basis for withholding the underlying evidence, including last night’s threat to invoke executive privilege, which was utterly without credibility, merit, or legal or factual basis.

“To the extent that we have asked for access to grand jury information—which is protected by federal law—all we have ever asked is that the Department join us in petitioning the court to determine if it is proper for us to have access to this material. We asked for a commitment to join us in that effort again last night, as it has done in many previous cases, and the Department refused.

“Second, with respect to the offer to lift some of the redactions for me and a handful of my colleagues, the Department has placed unacceptable limitations on access to that information. Their offer would block the members of this Committee from reading those sections of the report for themselves. It would require me to leave my notes behind at the Department of Justice. It would prevent me from speaking with my colleagues about what we may find.

“I have consistently stated that if we are to do our jobs as Members of the House Judiciary Committee, all of the Members require meaningful access to the Report and the underlying documents. We need to be able to confer with each other about what we have seen. We need to be able to take official action on what we have seen, if warranted. And, if necessary, we need to be able to inform a court of law of what we have learned, even if under seal.

“If we can find an accommodation that satisfies those basic principles, I would be happy to continue negotiating with the Department of Justice. But now, by invoking executive privilege on all of the materials subject to our subpoena, that process has come to a screeching halt. The Administration has announced—loud and clear—that it does not recognize Congress as a co-equal branch with independent constitutional oversight authority and it will continue to wage its campaign of obstruction.

“And to those who consider the matter ‘case closed’, in the words of some of our leaders, and who urge us to simply move on, I would say that to do so is to announce—loud and clear—that such a course of action has the effect of aiding and abetting in the Administration’s campaign of total, blanket, and unprecedented obstruction.

“The Trump Administration, and its enablers, may brazenly try to cover up the misdeeds uncovered by the Special Counsel, but on this Committee we will represent the American people and ensure the truth is known.

“I urge my colleagues to think about how the Department’s latest position, and their insistence on ignoring our subpoena, affects our Committee over time.

“Our fight is not just about the Mueller Report—although we must have access to the Mueller report. Our fight is about defending the rights of Congress, as an independent branch, to hold the President accountable.

“Every day we learn of new efforts by this Administration to stonewall Congress. The Ways and Means Committee has been denied the President’s tax returns when the law states clearly that they are entitled to them. The Chairman of the Oversight and Reform Committee has been sued in his personal capacity to prevent him from acquiring certain financial records from the Trump Organization. The President has stated that his Administration will oppose all subpoenas, and, in fact, virtually all document requests are going unsatisfied. Witnesses are refusing to show up to hearings.

“This is unprecedented. If allowed to go unchecked, this obstruction means the end of congressional oversight. As a co-equal branch of government, we should not and cannot allow this to continue. I urge my colleagues, whether or not you care to see the full Mueller Report—and we all should want to see the complete Report—to stand up for the institution we are proud to serve.

“I expect that we will have a full debate today on the measure before us. I hope that at the end of it, we will do what is right. No person—and certainly not the top law enforcement officer in the country—can be permitted to flout the will of Congress and to defy a valid subpoena.

“I urge all of my colleagues to support this report.”

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said special counsel Robert Mueller’s showed U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia “successfully ” interfered with our 2016 presidential election and “artificially” put Donald Trump in the White House.

Jeffries said, “Seventeen different intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered with our election, attacked our democracy for the sole purpose of artificially placing someone at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, they were successful, and that’s also what the Mueller report shows.”

“The notion that it’s a politically inspired witch hunt is just one of 10,000 or more misrepresentations that have been spun out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
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House Judiciary votes 24-16 to hold AG Barr in contempt for defying Mueller report subpoena https://t.co/WPA4hRBvBT

— HYGO News (@HygoNews) May 9, 2019