The panel approved the contempt resolution against Attorney General William Barr on party lines, with all Republicans opposing it. Congress Barr held in contempt by House Judiciary Trump earlier asserted executive privilege in a bid to block access to the unredacted Mueller report.

The House Judiciary Committee voted on Wednesday to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over special counsel Robert Mueller’s unredacted report — the most significant escalation yet in the ongoing oversight battle between Democrats and the Trump administration.

The White House also invoked executive privilege over the report — a move intended to shield all of the underlying evidence — after House Democrats’ negotiations with the Justice Department to avoid a contempt vote broke down .


“Our exhaustive negotiations with the Department of Justice have, unfortunately, left us back where we began — with unprecedented obstruction by an administration that has now announced its intention to block all attempts at congressional oversight of the executive branch. It is our constitutional duty to respond,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the committee.

“No person — and certainly not the top law enforcement officer in the country — can be permitted to flout the will of Congress and to defy a valid subpoena,” Nadler said.

He later said: "We are now in a constitutional crisis."

Wednesday’s vote represented House Democrats’ strongest rebuke yet of Trump’s efforts to defy their oversight demands and subpoenas. Trump’s posture toward their investigations has led several lawmakers to put impeachment on the table if the president’s “stonewalling” continues, though Speaker Nancy Pelosi has largely downplayed such efforts.

The panel approved the contempt resolution on party lines, with all Republicans opposing it. The measure now heads to the full House for final approval.

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Late Tuesday night, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd said the Justice Department would advise President Donald Trump to assert such privilege over Mueller’s report if the committee proceeds with its contempt vote. On Wednesday morning, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd informed Nadler that Trump had officially invoked executive privilege.

“Regrettably, you have made this assertion necessary by your insistence upon scheduling a premature contempt vote,” Boyd wrote to Nadler.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders added in a statement: “Neither the White House nor the attorney general will comply with Chairman Nadler’s unlawful and reckless demands.”

In a letter to Trump, Barr urged the president to invoke a sweeping claim of privilege over the Mueller report as a temporary measure to give him more time to render a “final decision” on which elements of the report are properly privileged.

“In cases like this where a committee has declined to grant sufficient time to conduct a full review, the President may make a protective assertion of privilege,” Barr wrote in a letter dated Wednesday.

Nadler said Trump’s claim of executive privilege was “utterly without credibility, merit, or legal or factual basis,” because the White House “waived these privileges long ago.” Other Democrats said Barr advised the president to assert executive privilege only as “retribution” for the committee’s contempt proceedings.

“Executive privilege is not a cloak of secrecy that drapes across our nation’s capital from the White House to the Justice Department,” said Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), a member of the Judiciary panel.

The two sides spent nearly all day and night on Tuesday negotiating a settlement that could have ultimately delayed the committee’s contempt proceedings. The Justice Department offered to slightly expand congressional access to a less redacted version of Mueller’s report on links between Russia and Trump’s campaign; but Democrats said their offer wasn’t sufficient because it would still limit access to 12 senior lawmakers.

Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec slammed Democrats after the contempt vote, saying the Barr was left with no choice but to advise Trump to assert executive privilege.

“Unfortunately, rather than allowing negotiations to continue, Chairman Nadler short-circuited these efforts by proceeding with a politically motivated and unnecessary contempt vote, which he refused to postpone to allow additional time to explore discussion and compromise,” Kupec said. “It is deeply disappointing that elected representatives of the American people have chosen to engage in such inappropriate political theatrics.”

In the run-up to the committee’s vote, Democrats and Republicans bickered over the president’s blanket refusal to comply with congressional subpoenas and requests for information.

Judiciary Committee Republicans defended the Justice Department’s refusal to comply with Democrats’ demands, arguing that Barr had already made sweeping accommodations to allow Congress to see redacted versions of Mueller’s report. They said Democrats were racing to punish Barr because they were frustrated that Mueller lacked evidence to charge any Americans with aiding a Russian effort to elect Trump in 2016.

“Democrats are angry the special counsel’s report did not produce the material or conclusions they expected to pave their path to impeaching the president,” said Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the Judiciary panel.

The Democrat-led committee launched an investigation in March into allegations that the president obstructed justice, and Nadler has argued that the panel’s investigators require all of Mueller’s underlying evidence for their own probe.

Democrats have also asked Barr to join them in seeking a court order to release Mueller’s grand-jury information, which is required by law to be kept secret. Barr has said publicly he doesn’t plan to honor that request, and Nadler is expected to go to court in the coming weeks.

The Justice Department’s resistance to providing Mueller’s complete findings is just one aspect of an all-out battle against Democrat’s demands to retrace Mueller’s steps. The White House intervened Tuesday in the Judiciary Committee’s negotiations with former White House counsel Don McGahn — whose testimony to Mueller described in vivid detail Trump’s efforts to thwart Mueller’s probe. The White House asked McGahn to blow off the committee’s demands, and McGahn, though an attorney, deferred to the White House’s request.

Nadler also indicated he’s concerned that an invocation of executive privilege could interfere with his committee’s effort to bring Mueller himself in as a witness. He told POLITICO earlier Wednesday that it could be difficult to bring Mueller in as a witness as long as he’s employed by the Justice Department.

But Nadler also said he anticipates Mueller will leave his post within two weeks, citing numerous public accounts that the special counsel is preparing to return to private life.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) wouldn’t give any hint Wednesday about when Democrats might bring up the contempt resolution on the House floor. Instead the No. 2 Democrat repeated several times that holding Barr in contempt is just one piece of a sprawling investigative effort that spans six House committees.

“There is a big picture here. This is a part, what’s happening today in the Judiciary Committee,” Hoyer told reporters. “We will deal with the individual parts of that big picture in the best way we think to be effective. And we haven’t decided that yet.”

Heather Caygle contributed to this report.

