Tag: House Judiciary Committee

White House orders McGahn to defy House subpoena

The White House has ordered former White House counsel Don McGahn not to turn over documents to Congress because President Trump may exert executive privilege to block their release.

Pat Cipollone, the current top White House lawyer, wrote a letter on Tuesday asking the House Judiciary Committee to go through the White House to request documents related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

“The White House provided these records to Mr. McGahn in connection with its cooperation with the special counsel’s investigation and with the clear understanding that the records remain subject to the control of the White House for all purposes,” Cipollone wrote to Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Judiciary panel.

View the complete May 7 article by Jordan Fabian and Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

Democrats schedule contempt markup for Barr over Mueller report

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee on Monday took their first formal step toward holding Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress, deepening a feud over special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

The committee scheduled a markup of a contempt citation for Barr over his refusal to provide Mueller’s full report to Congress for this Wednesday morning, setting up an explosive week on Capitol Hill.

The markup, slated for Wednesday at 10 a.m., comes after Democrats gave the Justice Department a deadline of 9 a.m. Monday to provide the report as well as the underlying evidence.

View the complete May 6 article by Olivia Beavers and Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Barr to testify before Senate panel next week on Mueller report

Attorney General William Barr is scheduled to testify next Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee on special counsel Robert Mueller‘s investigation.

Barr, who released a redacted version of Mueller’s report on Russian interference last week, is slated to appear before the committee on May 1 at 10 a.m.

The appearance will give lawmakers an opportunity to grill Barr on Mueller’s findings as well as his handling of the special counsel’s final report. The attorney general is also expected to testify before the House Judiciary Committee the following day.

View the complete April 24 article by Morgan Chalfant and Jacqueline Thomsen on The Hill website here.

House Judiciary chairman subpoenas former White House lawyer McGahn

The head of the House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena Monday seeking the public testimony of former White House counsel Don McGahn to probe possible obstruction of justice by President Trump, following the release of special counsel’s Robert Mueller’s report.

Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) described McGahn as a critical witness who may be able to shed light on cases in which he says Trump may have sought to obstruct Mueller’s investigation, a matter that is being examined as part of his panel’s sprawling probe into possible obstruction of justice, public corruption and abuses of power by the president and his inner circle.

McGahn’s testimony was featured extensively in Mueller’s report, which stated that Trump told him to remove Mueller in June 2017, according to the former White House counsel. McGahn refused to do so, fearing it would have been viewed “as triggering another Saturday Night Massacre,” the 448-page report says.

View the complete April 22 article by Olivia Beavers and Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Democrats renew attacks on Trump attorney general

Democrats ripped into Attorney General William Barr on Friday, signaling he’ll be a focal point of their attacks on the Trump administration in the post-Mueller report world.

The Democrats say Barr bungled the handling of special counsel Robert Mueller‘s report and that he has repeatedly sought to protect President Trump, contrasting his comments about what the report said with the actual text that was released on Thursday.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) issued a subpoena on Friday to win the release of the full report, while other Democrats have called for Barr’s resignation.

View the complete April 20 article by Olivia Beavers on The Hill website here.

Judiciary chairman issues subpoena for full Mueller report

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) on Friday issued a subpoena to compel the Department of Justice to turn over special counsel Robert Mueller‘s full report.

His order comes one day after Attorney General William Barr publicly released a redacted version of the Mueller report.

“I have issued a subpoena to the Department of Justice for the full version of the Mueller report and the underlying evidence. The Department is required to comply with that subpoena by May 1,” Nadler said in a statement.

View the complete April 19 article by Olivia beavers on The Hill website here.

On eve of Mueller report’s release, Nadler accuses Barr of protecting Trump

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler accused Attorney General William P. Barr of trying to protect President Trump and “bake in the narrative to the benefit of the White House” by holding a news conference about the special counsel’s report hours before Nadler says the report will be made public.

In a hastily assembled news conference of his own Wednesday night on the eve of the release of the redacted findings of Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, the New York Democrat said he’d been informed by the Justice Department that Congress would receive the report between 11 a.m. and noon. Barr is scheduled to speak to the press at 9:30 a.m.

“The attorney general appears to be waging a media campaign on behalf of President Trump — the very subject of investigation at the heart of the Mueller report — rather than letting the facts speak for themselves,” Nadler said.

View the complete April 17 article by Colby Itkowitz and Rachael Bade on The Washington Post website here.

House Judiciary Chair Will Call Mueller To Testify

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has concluded, but countless questions remain about what he discovered.

Attorney General Bill Barr is scheduled to testify in Congress this week, and he will surely be peppered with questions about the investigation and how he has handled its conclusion, which has been widely criticized. Undoubtedly, Democrats will grill him over his delay and caginess in releasing the investigation’s final report. But there’s one person Congress and the American people will want to hear from even more: Mueller himself.

And on Monday, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, confirmed that he plans to call Mueller to testify. As special counsel, he remained phenomenally and conspicuously silent and his team was virtually leak-proof, so hearing direct testimony from the former FBI director will be a blockbuster event. But Nadler included a caveat on his plans: He wants to wait until their report has been released:

View the complete April 8 article by Cody Fenwick with AlterNet on the National Memo website here.

House to probe rise in hate crimes since Trump was elected

Looking into rising hate crimes is a priority for House Judiciary Chairman Nadler

The House Judiciary Committee will look into rising rates of hate crimes and white nationalism in the U.S. at a hearing on Tuesday, April 9.

After the midterm elections last year, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the chairman of the committee who was then the ranking member, promised to hold hearings in the new Congress on the rise of racially and religiously motivated violence.

The committee will “examine the causes of racial and religious violence, assess the adequacy of federal hate crimes statutes, and scrutinize targeted domestic surveillance of specific groups,” Nadler wrote in a letter last November to the Homeland Security Department, Justice Department and FBI.

View the complete April 4 article by Griffin Connolly on The Roll Call website here.

House panel approves subpoena for Mueller report

The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday voted to authorize a subpoena to compel the Justice Department to hand over special counsel Robert Mueller’s full report to Congress, intensifying a power struggle with the Trump administration.

In a party-line vote, the committee voted 24-17 to approve a resolution authorizing subpoenas for Mueller’s report, including accompanying exhibits and other attachments, as well as its underlying evidence. The resolution also authorizes the committee’s Democratic chairman to subpoena testimony related to the special counsel’s report.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said he would give Attorney General William Barr time to produce the final, unredacted report to Congress before issuing the subpoena; however he did not provide a timeline on when that would happen.

View the complete April 3 article by Morgan Chalfant and Olivia beavers on The Hill website here.