A vote of approval on a contempt citation against Attorney General William Barr from the House Judiciary Committee would send the measure to the full chamber for consideration later this month. | Win McNamee/Getty Images Legal Nadler and Barr steam toward clash over contempt The House Judiciary Committee will proceed on a vote to hold the attorney general in contempt for defying a subpoena, despite DOJ efforts to negotiate.

The House Judiciary Committee will proceed with a vote to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress on Wednesday, Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) confirmed late Monday, as the Justice Department attempts to fend off the effort ahead of a negotiating session with the Democratic-led committee on Tuesday.

Nadler's firm stance comes as he seeks punitive actions against the attorney general for defying a subpoena for special counsel Robert Mueller’s unredacted report on the Russia investigation and its underlying evidence. It also comes hours after the Justice Department put forward a last-ditch plea to negotiate with the panel, offering a Wednesday meeting but later agreeing to Nadler’s demand for a Tuesday sit-down.


“At the moment, our plans to consider holding Attorney General Barr accountable for his failure to comply with our subpoena still stand,” Nadler said in a statement. “My hope is that we make concrete progress at tomorrow’s meeting towards resolving this dispute. The committee remains committed to finding a reasonable accommodation.”

In a letter to Nadler earlier Monday, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd invited the chairman to a negotiation session on Wednesday to discuss an “acceptable accommodation” that would potentially give more lawmakers access to a less-redacted version of the report, in addition to “possible disclosure of certain materials” cited in Mueller’s report.

Boyd’s letter came hours after the committee took its first formal step toward holding Barr in contempt of Congress for defying the panel’s subpoena for Mueller's unredacted report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, when Nadler announced that it planned to consider a contempt citation against Barr on Wednesday morning.

A vote of approval from the Democrat-led committee would send the measure to the full House for consideration later this month. Nadler said he would put the contempt proceedings on hold if the Justice Department engages in a “good-faith” effort to give Democrats access to the requested information.

“The attorney general’s failure to comply with our subpoena, after extensive accommodation efforts, leaves us no choice but to initiate contempt proceedings in order to enforce the subpoena and access the full, unredacted report,” Nadler said in a statement before the DOJ released its letter.

Democrats have argued that the redacted version Barr made public last month is insufficient to consider a potential congressional response to Mueller's findings, particularly his evidence that President Donald Trump attempted to thwart the investigation.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said he would put the contempt proceedings on hold if the Justice Department engages in a “good-faith” effort to give Democrats access to the requested information. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The committee launched its own obstruction of justice investigation against the president earlier this year. The contempt citation explicitly mentions that probe, which is also centered on allegations of “public corruption and other abuses of power” by the president.

“Attorney General Barr failed to comply with the committee’s request for these documents and thereby has hindered the committee’s constitutional, oversight, and legislative functions,” the citation states.

The contempt citation also references the Justice Department’s long-standing policy against indicting a sitting president, noting that Mueller accepted those guidelines in declining to charge Trump with obstruction of justice.

“Congress is therefore the only body able to hold the president to account for improper conduct in our tripartite system, and urgently requires the subpoenaed material to determine whether and how to proceed with its constitutional duty to provide checks and balances on the president and executive branch,” the citation states. “Otherwise, the president remains insulated from legal consequences and sits above the law.”

The Justice Department said last week it would not comply with the committee’s subpoena for the unredacted report and the underlying evidence, arguing that it amounts to illegitimate congressional oversight. Nadler gave Barr until Monday morning to respond to an augmented offer; the Justice Department did not respond to that offer, and has maintained that it would be violating the law if it complied with the Democrats’ request.

Boyd slammed Nadler for refusing to view the less-redacted version of Mueller’s report, which still includes redactions of grand-jury information. Boyd said Nadler’s refusal “naturally raises questions about the sincerity of the committee’s interest in and purported need for the redacted material.”

All six House and Senate Democrats declined to read the less-redacted version of the report offered to a select group of senior lawmakers, arguing that the offer should have included dozens more members of the committees investigating matters connected to Mueller's findings.

In response to the formal contempt notice on Monday, the committee’s top Republican, Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, called Nadler’s move “illogical and disingenuous” because the Justice Department is still negotiating with the panel.

“Democrats have launched a proxy war smearing the attorney general when their anger actually lies with the president and the special counsel, who found neither conspiracy nor obstruction,” Collins said in a statement.

Democrats have been demanding Mueller's complete report and underlying evidence for months, a call that intensified after Mueller submitted his findings to Barr in late March. But Barr held on to the report for a month while he reviewed and redacted it for several categories of sensitive information. The public version of the report he released contained limited redactions but included none of Mueller's underlying material — evidence Democrats say they need to determine whether Trump committed impeachable offenses.

Though Mueller concluded that he lacked sufficient evidence to prove any Americans aided the vast Russian effort to interfere in the 2016 election, he described repeated efforts by Trump to sideline the investigation altogether and to encourage witnesses to refrain from full cooperation.

Mueller did not formally conclude that Trump obstructed justice — a determination he said was largely a result of the DOJ restrictions against indicting a sitting president — but Barr has since used Mueller's evidence to absolve Trump of the potential crime.

Barr testified for five hours to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week and described sharp disagreements with the legal theories undergirding Mueller's findings — including whether Trump's tweets can be persuasive evidence of obstruction and suggesting Mueller told him privately, despite not indicating it in his report, that his obstruction decision was not based on the longstanding DOJ restriction.

Barr skipped a hearing House Democrats had called last Thursday after his aides objected to Democrats' request to allow committee lawyers from both parties to question Barr for 30 minutes each. Democrats previously authorized Nadler to subpoena Barr a second time to compel his appearance before their committee, though he hasn't issued it yet.

The impact of a contempt citation could be simply symbolic. Republicans held Barack Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over documents. Some Democrats have floated the possibility of using punitive enforcement mechanisms against Barr for defying their subpoena, including levying fines against the attorney general.

