The House Judiciary Committee will markup and likely advance a motion to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress on Wednesday, after he failed to comply with a subpoena for an unredacted copy of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.
House Republicans are already denouncing the decision as an “illogical and disingenuous” move aimed at “smearing the attorney general.” But just a few years ago, when Eric Holder was in charge of the Justice Department, 238 House Republicans voted to hold him in contempt when he did not turn over requested documents related to a failed gunwalking sting called “Operation Fast and Furious.”
The 2012 contempt effort was spearheaded by then-House oversight chair Darrell Issa (R-CA). “I always believed that in time we would reach an accommodation sufficient to get the information needed for the American people while at the same time preserving the ongoing criminal investigations,” he lamented. But without the administration turning over the subpoenaed documents about the ATF program, he said, a contempt vote was necessary.
View the complete May 7 article by Josh Israel on the ThinkProgress website here.