An assistant attorney general said executive privilege would be invoked if the House Judiciary Committee holds Attorney General William Barr in contempt. | Win McNamee/Getty Images congress Dems moving forward with Barr contempt vote after DOJ talks break down But the Justice Department threatens to ask Trump to invoke executive privilege to block a subpoena for the full Mueller report.

The Justice Department is preparing to ask the White House to invoke executive privilege over special counsel Robert Mueller's entire report and underlying evidence, a defensive move the night before Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are set to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt for refusing to make the report's full contents available to Congress.

“In the face of the committee’s threatened contempt vote, the attorney general will be compelled to request that the president invoke executive privilege with respect to the materials subject to the subpoena,” Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, asking the committee to hold off on its contempt proceedings.


The Justice Department’s latest move comes despite the fact that at least two lawmakers — Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) — have already viewed a less-redacted version of Mueller's report than the one Barr made public last month.

Boyd emphasized that Trump has not yet asserted executive privilege but said Barr will urge the president to make a “protective” assertion of privilege if the committee proceeds with its contempt vote against Barr for defying the panel’s subpoena for the full Mueller report and underlying evidence.

An invocation of executive privilege by the White House could tie up Democrats' efforts to gain access to the report in litigation and negotiations that could drag for months or even years. Though Democrats say such a move by the White House would be baseless and easily dispatched in court, it's not clear how long such a battle would take.

Nadler said that despite the Justice Department’s request, the contempt vote is still scheduled for Wednesday morning, and he challenged the Justice Department’s legal arguments.

“The department’s legal arguments are without credibility, merit, or legal or factual basis,” Nadler said. “Worse, this kind of obstruction is dangerous. The department’s decision reflects President Trump’s blanket defiance of Congress’s constitutionally mandated duties.”

"In the coming days, I expect that Congress will have no choice but to confront the behavior of this lawless Administration," Nadler continued. "The Committee will also take a hard look at the officials who are enabling this cover up."

The latest salvo from the Justice Department follows several hours of negotiating between the committee and Justice Department. Democrats say all members of Congress should have access to Mueller’s findings — especially the dozens of members on committees investigating conduct related to his report on links between the Trump campaign and Russia.

But Barr has permitted only 12 senior lawmakers — six Republicans and six Democrats — to view a minimally redacted version of the report. As of last week, only Collins and Graham said they’ve viewed the less-redacted report, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he intended to view it.

Earlier Tuesday, Justice Department officials huddled on Capitol Hill with committee staffers and presented an offer intended to head off Barr being cited for contempt. Their offer, according to two sources familiar with the matter, included allowing the 12 lawmakers already granted access to the report to bring two staff members — rather than one — to view the less-redacted report. DOJ also said those lawmakers and staff could keep any notes they took on the report.

But the offer did not include allowing additional lawmakers to access the report, making it a non-starter for Democrats. Nadler offered a counter-proposal late Tuesday that would have granted the full Judiciary and Intelligence Committees in the House and Senate access to the less-redacted report, an aide said.

Nadler’s counter-offer also included up to three staff members for each party and a commitment from the Justice Department to either support the committee’s efforts to access grand jury material contained in Mueller’s report, or a promise not to oppose the committee if it sought a court order to do so.

Finally, Nadler asked for a meeting to lay out a schedule to roll out lawmakers’ access to Mueller’s full underlying materials.

But the Justice Department rejected those terms, calling them “unreasonable demands” and said they were “a transparent attempt to short-circuit the constitutionally mandated accommodation process and provoke an unnecessary conflict between our respective branches of government.”

House Republicans defended the Justice Department’s argument.

“It appears that the more access to information Democrats receive, the less interested they are in actually examining those facts,” said Collins, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee.

“Chairman Nadler, however, rebuffed the olive branch and plowed ahead with his plan to hold Attorney General Barr in contempt for upholding the law,” Collins added. “I can’t imagine a more illogical hill for a legislator to die on.”

The Justice Department also intends to continue shielding grand-jury information. Democrats have urged Barr to join them in seeking a court order to release that information so that the committee can use it for its ongoing obstruction of justice investigation into President Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, the committee is still seeking testimony from Mueller himself and from former White House counsel Don McGahn, who is emerging as a central witness in the obstruction probe. McGahn earlier Tuesday refused to comply with the committee’s subpoena for documents related to that investigation after the White House instructed him to disregard House Democrats’ demands.

Nadler teed up the contempt vote on Monday after Barr signaled he would defy the panel’s subpoena for full, unredacted report and underlying evidence.

Boyd criticized Nadler last week in a letter indicating that the Justice Department would not comply with the subpoena, arguing that it amounts to an abuse of congressional authority. Democrats have accused the Justice Department of stonewalling their document requests and blasted Barr for what they said was an effort to spin Mueller’s findings.

While the fight for access to the unredacted report has centered on the Judiciary panel, the House Intelligence Committee has also demanded the full report in addition to the foreign intelligence and counterintelligence information gathered throughout the investigation.

On Tuesday, a committee aide revealed that the Justice Department “has not produced any documents responsive to our requests and has not agreed to schedule any testimony, even after Chairman [Adam] Schiff and ranking member [Devin] Nunes sent a follow-up letter in late April, almost a month after the DOJ did not respond to their first letter.”

In that follow-up letter, Schiff and Nunes said that absent “meaningful compliance” by Thursday of this week, the committee would “have no choice but to resort to compulsory process” beginning on Friday.

Heather Caygle, Sarah Ferris and John Bresnahan contributed to this report.

