If Attorney General William Barr doesn’t comply with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler’s (D-NY) new attempt to reach an agreement allowing Congress to see the redacted portions of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report by Monday, Nadler has threatened to begin contempt proceedings.
In a letter to Barr on Friday, Nadler offered for the Judiciary Committee to work with the Department of Justice to prioritize a “specific, defined set” of underlying evidentiary materials for “immediate production,” specifically witness interviews and notes taken by witnesses.
“Since these materials are publicly cited and described in the Mueller report, there can be no question about the Committee’s need for and right to this underlying evidence in order to independently evaluate the facts that special counsel Mueller uncovered and fulfill our constitutional duties,” he wrote.
Nadler also offered to work with the Justice Department to seek access to the grand jury materials in court, something Barr has refused to do.
Yet if the department does not comply by Monday at 9 a.m., Nadler threatened that he will hold the attorney general in contempt.
“The Committee is prepared to make every realistic effort to reach an accommodation with the Department,” Nadler wrote. “But if the Department persists in its baseless refusal to comply with a validly issued subpoena, the Committee will move to contempt proceedings and seek further legal recourse.”
The Justice Department rejected Nadler’s subpoena for the unredacted version of the report on Wednesday, suggesting the request was “overbroad and extraordinarily burdensome.”
Read the letter below:
