Even though Barr informed the panel he isn't coming, Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said he will still convene the hearing, raising the prospect of an empty witness chair
Barr's decision — he cites a disagreement over the questioning — came the day the department missed a committee deadline to provide the panel with a full, unredacted version of Mueller's Russia report and its underlying evidence. Those moves are likely to prompt a vote on holding Barr in contempt and possibly the issuance of subpoenas, bringing House Democrats and the Trump administration closer to a prolonged battle in court.
As Barr refused to testify, Democrats sought to speak to Mueller himself. Nadler said the panel hoped the special counsel would appear before the committee on May 15 and the panel was"firming up the date." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she's not interested in impeachment, for the moment. But she told The Associated Press on Wednesday that"the threat of impeachment is always there."
Also weighing in on the matter of who would ask questions was Trump."They want to treat him differently than they have anybody else," the president told Fox Business Network's Trish Regan on Wednesday night, adding,"You elect people that are supposed to be able to do their own talking." Trump said he heard that Barr had performed"incredibly well" before the Senate panel.
In a letter sent to the committee late Wednesday, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd laid out a list of reasons that the department won't provide the full Mueller report or all the underlying evidence. Boyd said the special counsel's investigative files include"millions of pages of classified and unclassified documents, bearing upon more than two dozen criminal cases and investigations, many of which are ongoing.
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