House Democrats sent a letter Wednesday to acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, demanding that he appear before the Judiciary Committee by Jan. 29 and saying that the government shutdown was no excuse for delaying his testimony.

Whitaker previously wrote to Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York that he would appear before the panel in mid-February “so long as the Department is at least two weeks removed from a partial government shutdown.”

Nadler rejected that proposed timeline in Wednesday’s letter to Whitaker.

“We are willing to work with you to identify a mutually identifiable date for your testimony, but we will not allow that date to slip past January 29, 2019 — the day of the President’s scheduled address to Congress, when we know you will be in Washington,” the chairman wrote.

Nadler cited internal Justice Department guidance from 1995, when the Office of Legal Counsel wrote that, in the event of a government shutdown, “the Department may continue activities such as providing testimony at hearings if the Department’s participation is necessary for the hearing to be effective.”