“Political theater is not the purpose of an oversight hearing, and I will not allow that to be the case," Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said in a statement to the House Judiciary Committee. | Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo Congress Whitaker agrees to testify amid subpoena standoff The House judiciary chairman 'made the commitment' to not issue a subpoena, a Justice Department spokeswoman says.

A subpoena fight between the House Judiciary Committee and the Justice Department ended with a cease-fire Thursday night when acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker ultimately agreed to testify before the panel.

Whitaker initially told the committee that he would not show up as planned on Friday unless Chairman Jerry Nadler dropped his threat to issue a subpoena to compel his testimony. In response, Nadler (D-N.Y.) refused to withdraw his subpoena threat, which was approved by the full committee earlier Thursday.


But a DOJ spokeswoman said Nadler eventually “made the commitment” to not issue a subpoena if Whitaker appears before the committee voluntarily on Friday.

“In light of that commitment, acting Attorney General Whitaker looks forward to voluntarily appearing at tomorrow’s hearing and discussing the great work of the Department of Justice,” said the DOJ spokeswoman, Kerri Kupec.

Whitaker's ultimatum came after the committee authorized Nadler to subpoena the acting attorney general if he does not appear or answer certain questions about his role overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe during Friday's highly anticipated hearing.

Nadler, for his part, said that if Whitaker declines to answer certain questions, the committee would evaluate Whitaker's objections “on a case-by-case basis.”

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In a separate letter, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd demanded “written assurance” by 6 p.m. Thursday that the committee would not issue a subpoena. “Absent such an assurance,” Boyd wrote, Whitaker would not show up for Friday morning’s hearing.

“Based upon today’s action, it is apparent that the Committee’s true intention is not to discuss the great work of the Department of Justice, but to create a public spectacle,” Whitaker said. “Political theater is not the purpose of an oversight hearing, and I will not allow that to be the case.”

Earlier Thursday, a contentious committee meeting ended with a party-line vote, giving Nadler subpoena power if he chooses to use it.

“If Mr. Whitaker appears in the hearing room, as scheduled, and if he provides direct answers to our questions, then I have no intention of ever issuing this subpoena,” Nadler said during the meeting.

Whitaker said the committee’s action meant it “has deviated from historic practice and protocol,” adding: “Such unprecedented action breaches our prior agreement and circumvents the constitutionally required accommodation process.”

Republicans said the committee’s vote Thursday morning amounted to unnecessary “political theater” with the intention of “embarrassing” Whitaker and President Donald Trump, adding that a subpoena should only be a last resort to compel testimony.

But Nadler argued it was necessary for the committee to authorize him to issue one in advance given recent “troubling events,” including former Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ refusal to answer certain questions based on the possibility that Trump would invoke executive privilege in the future.

“When we ask them questions, they have to provide us with answers — or provide us with a valid and clearly articulated reason to withhold certain information,” Nadler said. “Without the threat of a subpoena, I believe it may be difficult to hold Mr. Whitaker to this standard.”

Rank-and-file Democrats appeared antsy for Nadler to move forward with the subpoena after Whitaker’s ultimatum — and take him to court if he doesn’t comply.

“It’s a ridiculous stance to take — that I can’t testify if you’re going to subpoena me. That’s pretty much admitting that I’m going to come here and not answer your questions, and therefore, if you’re subpoenaing me, I’m not going to come,” Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), a member of the judiciary panel, told POLITICO. “So it means we must subpoena him.”

Trump on Thursday praised Whitaker, telling reporters at the White House that “he’s an outstanding person. I would say if he did testify, he’d do very well.”

Throughout the Trump presidency, top administration officials have declined to publicly discuss their conversations with the president, often frustrating Democratic lawmakers. Nadler sent Whitaker a list of questions last month about his supervision of Mueller’s investigation, including his interactions with the president about the probe.

In his response to Nadler on Thursday, Boyd said Whitaker would follow the “long-standing policy and practice” of not revealing the contents of private conversations with the president.

“Rather than conducting appropriate oversight into the Department’s programs and activities, the Committee evidently seeks to ask questions about confidential presidential communications that no Attorney General could ever be expected to disclose under the circumstances,” Boyd wrote, adding that “at no time did the White House ask for, or did the Acting Attorney General provide, any promises or commitments concerning the Special Counsel’s investigation.”

Before being named as the acting chief of the department, Whitaker was highly critical of the Mueller probe, even suggesting de-funding it. Whitaker opted against recusing himself from overseeing the investigation, a decision that angered Democrats but one that Whitaker is prepared to defend, according to Boyd.

Whitaker took the job overseeing all of the special counsel’s major decisions, including subpoenas, indictments and his budget, upon Sessions’ resignation last November. But senior DOJ officials say that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Ed O’Callaghan, the principal associate deputy attorney general, also have maintained the same roles supervising Mueller that they had when Sessions led DOJ and had been recused from the investigation because of his ties to the 2016 Trump campaign.

Mueller’s work since the changeover atop November hasn’t abated. The special counsel has secured an indictment against longtime Trump associate Roger Stone for lying to Congress and lodged new charges claiming Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort violated the terms of his guilty plea by lying to prosecutors.

The Nadler-Whitaker fight has been in the making since the 2018 elections, when Democrats won control of the House and vowed to conduct heightened oversight across the Trump administration. Nadler pledged to make Whitaker his first witness soon after the midterms, and following a late-November phone call, the Democrats said the new acting attorney general had committed to testifying at the start of the new Congress.

But talks soon broke down over those plans, and Nadler in late January set the stage for this week’s subpoena battle with a letter previewing a list of questions he expected Whitaker to answer about his conversations with Trump and others in the administration related to the Mueller investigation and other related probes involving the Justice Department. Nadler then sent another letter last week in which he set a Wednesday deadline for the acting attorney general to notify the committee whether Trump intends to claim executive privilege.

During a Thursday afternoon briefing with reporters, a senior DOJ official said Whitaker’s offer still stands to voluntarily testify before the House panel on Friday. But the official said that would only happen if Democrats drop their subpoena threat.

Citing a series of Supreme Court rulings, the DOJ official said the executive branch has the authority to first try to negotiate with Congress and to wait to assert any privilege claims until the oversight hearing is over and lawmakers have had their chance to pose their questions. “More often than not, the branches work things out,” the official said.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats on the Judiciary Committee said they’d been working to accommodate Whitaker for weeks.

“I’m not sure how anyone who’s helping to prepare him could argue that the actions of our committee in providing the questions week in advance, in giving him the opportunity to review those questions and tell us whether he was going to invoke privilege — how we’re doing anything other than being as accommodating as possible,” said Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Nadler’s moves on Whitaker haven’t gone over well with Republican members of the panel, who said it was unnecessary to debate the issuance of a subpoena when a witness has not signaled that he or she would not attend or answer certain questions.

“A subpoena should signal that all other avenues to acquire the information or testimony at issue have been exhausted,” said Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the Judiciary committee. “Those avenues have not been exhausted here. A subpoena should not be used as a supplement where the committee is merely worried that a witness might not answer questions to the extent of the committee’s liking.”

Republicans offered an amendment to add Rosenstein’s name to the subpoena, but the effort was defeated on a party-line vote.