WASHINGTON — Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that the United States was in a “constitutional crisis” and warned that House Democrats might move to hold more Trump administration officials in contempt of Congress if they continued their refusals to comply with committee subpoenas.
Speaking to reporters in the Capitol, Ms. Pelosi said she agreed with Representative Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who said Wednesday that the nation was in a constitutional crisis after his committee recommended the House hold Attorney General William P. Barr in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over an unredacted version of the special counsel’s report, along with the report’s underlying evidence.
“The administration has decided they are not going to honor their oath of office,” she said.
Ms. Pelosi said Democrats would bring the contempt citation to the floor for a vote of the full House “when we are ready.”
Democrats have not settled on a precise date for the vote to hold Mr. Barr in contempt of Congress, though Mr. Nadler said after Wednesday’s vote that he wanted it scheduled “rapidly.”
Democratic leaders may wait to pair the Judiciary Committee’s contempt recommendations with another, most likely from the Intelligence Committee should its conflict with the Justice Department get to that point.
The committee’s chairman, Representative Adam B. Schiff, issued a subpoena on Thursday for Mr. Barr to hand over the full Mueller report and evidence, as well as all counterintelligence and foreign intelligence generated by the special counsel’s investigations. He gave the Justice Department until May 15 to comply. If Mr. Barr ignores that deadline, the Intelligence Committee would probably hold its own contempt proceedings and send another recommendation to the House floor.
There are other possible contempt citations in the wings as well, including for Donald F. McGahn II, the former White House counsel who is under subpoena by the Judiciary Committee, and witnesses in unrelated Oversight and Reform Committee investigations.
“In terms of timing, when we’re ready, we’ll come to the floor,” Ms. Pelosi said. “There might be some other contempt of Congress issues that we want to deal with at the same time.”
Ms. Pelosi has been urging caution since the release of the report by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel; she believes that Democrats campaigned on addressing issues like health care and the high cost of prescription drugs and must keep their focus on priorities for voters.
She reiterated that message on Thursday, while at the same time clearly leaving the door open for impeachment.
“We’re going to do the right thing, that’s just the way it is, and it is going to be based on fact and law and patriotism, not partisanship or anything else,” she said.
While Mr. Mueller found insufficient evidence to bring charges against President Trump for conspiring or colluding with Russia to influence the 2016 elections, he cited at least 10 specific instances in which Mr. Trump may have obstructed his investigation. After the release of the Mueller report, Ms. Pelosi promised a series of hearings and investigations that would allow the American people to see the facts for themselves and decide whether impeachment was warranted.
But with Mr. Trump stonewalling Democrats and vowing to fight “all the subpoenas,” party leaders including Ms. Pelosi are increasingly casting the decision about impeachment in terms of the Constitution’s system of checks and balances — a message they believe voters can easily relate to.
“Will the administration violate the Constitution of the United States and not abide by the request of Congress in its legitimate oversight responsibility?” she asked, adding, “Every day they are advertising their obstruction of justice by ignoring subpoenas and by just declaring that people shouldn’t come speak to Congress.”
She said Congress was on “a path that is producing results and gathering information, and some of that information is that this administration wants to have a constitutional crisis because they do not respect the oath of office that they take.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/us/politics/pelosi-constitutional-crisis.html
2019-05-09 15:12:18Z
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