The House just voted to hold AG William Barr in contempt of Congress [View all]

[George II]

Last edited Tue Jun 11, 2019, 01:22 PM - Edit history (2)

Source: Vox

Democrats escalate their fight with the Trump administration.

By Ella [e-mail] Jun 11, 2019, 11:36am EDT

The full House of Representatives passed a civil contempt resolution against Attorney General William Barr and other administration officials for failing to comply with congressional subpoenas Tuesday, a day after House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler said his committee won't pursue a criminal contempt citation against Barr.

Today's vote is essentially a procedural green light that allows Nadler to take future action to get the unredacted report of special counsel Robert Mueller -- but it's more sweeping than his fight alone. With today's vote, the House has now authorized all its committees to pursue and enforce civil contempt of Congress citations for Barr, former White House counsel Don McGahn, and other Trump administration officials if they continue to their blanket refusal of lawmakers' subpoenas.

In other words, even though Nadler announced on Monday that he'll hold off on taking Barr to court after the two reached a deal for Congress to see more of the Mueller report, he and other committee chairs will now have the House's blessing to take Trump administration officials to court in the future. And they won't have to get the authorization of the full House to do it each time. (However, each contempt request would also have to get approval from the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group.)

Today's contempt vote comes alongside a number of court actions Democrats have already taken against the administration to enforce their subpoenas, with some success.

Read more: https://www.vox.com/2019/6/11/18647093/contempt-of-congress-barr-house-vote

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First vote completed at 2:14, passed on straight party line vote, now subpoenas resolution is scheduled for 3:30.

Edit: It appears that Vox jumped the gun, the vote will be take at 12:30. They must have written the article in anticipation of a successful vote and someone posted it prematurely.

Jamie Raskin has now introduced the resolution (it's on C-Span) There will be a one-hour debate.