The Democrat chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has said he would subpoena the U.S. Attorney General as if he has been uncooperative – even though he has repeatedly agreed to answer questions before the committee.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) said he would subpoena U.S. Attorney General William Barr and made several comments critical of the AG – which is nothing new. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), ranking member on the committee, has now sent Nadler a letter critical of the subpoena threat.
“Today your staff indicated that you intend to issue a subpoena to Attorney General William P. Barr for testimony at a Committee hearing on July 2, 2020. The Attorney General had previously agreed to appear voluntarily in March, before you cancelled the hearing due to the coronavirus pandemic. Attorney General Barr remains willing to testify voluntarily once the pandemic concludes. Accordingly, there is no legitimate basis for you to compel his testimony at this time,” Jordan wrote.
Jordan then documented Nadler’s history of comments critical of Barr – comments he did not make when Eric Holder or Loretta Lynch were the attorney general despite their own history of working to protect former President Barack Obama.
“You have adopted an odd and decidedly partisan posture toward Attorney General Barr ever since his confirmation. In April 2019, even before Attorney General Barr appeared before the Committee, you baselessly accused him of being a “biased person” doing the political bidding of the President. Then, in May 2019, the day before the Attorney General’s first scheduled appearance, you orchestrated an unprecedented change to the Committee’s hearing procedures—rules to which no other recent Attorney General had been subjected—that you knew would prevent him from testifying. On the date of his scheduled testimony, you laughed as a senior Democrat Member brought a bucket of fried chicken to suggest that Attorney General Barr was somehow afraid to face the Committee. This sort of conduct embarrasses the Committee, undermines its work, and stains its reputation,” Jordan wrote.”
This past weekend, Jordan noted, Nadler suggested Barr should be impeached for his role in firing Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who has been investigating President Donald Trump’s allies and ultimately works for Barr and Trump.
Jordan then knocked Nadler for the chairman’s alleged commitment to civil liberties and his blind spot for evidence of wrongdoing against the Trump administration, including the FBI’s attempt to get former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn fired.
“I understand you may not agree with the Justice Department’s work to expose how the Obama-Biden Administration targeted the Trump campaign. You may not believe that it is wrong for the FBI to interview an American citizen with the goal of ‘get[ting] him to lie, so we can prosecute or get him fired.’ You may not believe it is wrong to use political opposition research and Russian disinformation as a basis to illegally spy on an American citizen. You may not believe it is wrong for an FBI attorney to doctor evidence in support of an application for electronic surveillance. You may not be alarmed by senior FBI employees discussing an ‘insurance policy’ against a duly-elected President of the United States,” Jordan wrote.
Jordan insisted that Nadler had no “legitimate reasons to compel” Barr to testify, given the fact that the attorney general has made clear he will testify without the threat of a subpoena.
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