Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, gave Attorney General William Barr a deadline by which Barr was supposed to present to Nadler's committee the full, unredacted, graffiti-free report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller, as well as the evidence underlying its conclusions. Because of who he's always been, and because of the person for whom he currently works. Barr blew that deadline. So now the committee has voted to subpoena these documents if Barr continues to stonewall. From The New York Times:



The chairman, Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, said he would not immediately issue the subpoena. But the party-line vote won by Democrats who control the committee ratchets up pressure on Attorney General William P. Barr as he decides how much of the nearly 400-page report to share with lawmakers. “I will give him time to change his mind,” Mr. Nadler said in his opening statement. “But if we cannot reach an accommodation, then we will have no choice but to issue subpoenas for these materials.”



I'm sure that Judiciary Chairman Nadler is just being, well, judicious in allowing Barr and the White House this wiggle room, but the longer the report stays the exclusive property of this particular Executive Branch, the less I am going to trust what eventually emerges from the "vetting" process. This is now starting to carry the aroma of those transcripts released by the Nixon White House that permanently lodged the phrase "Expletive Deleted" in the history of American politics. And even those carried enough evidence of the ethical petrified forest that was the Nixon White House that their release did that president more harm than good.

Chairman Nadler has threatened a subpoena, but is giving the Executive Branch too much time. MANDEL NGAN Getty Images

A better comparison may be Nixon's failed attempt to sell a "compromise" by which he would allow John Stennis, an aged segregationist Democrat from Mississippi, to listen to the tapes and report back to the Congress the content that Stennis considered relevant. However, Stennis might have been old, but he was no fool. He smelled panic in the White House and wanted no part of it. From The New York Times of October 21, 1973:



Mr. Stennis said his understanding was that he was to have summarized the portions of the tapes that dealt with national security or non‐Watergate subjects, such as pending legislation. “If it was pertaining to Watergate or the alleged coverup,” Mr. Stennis said, “then I was to certify, as to the quotations, transcripts.” The Mississippi Democrat said his only contact with the White House had been by telephone with J. Fred Buzhardt Jr., special counsel to Nixon.

“The gentleman who talked to me about this didn't talk to Senator Ervin and Senator Baker,” Mr. Stennis said. “We three Senators didn't talk to each other.” His understanding, he added, was that he was to prepare two copies, one for the Senate Watergate committee and the other for the White House to do with what it wanted. “That was the end of my responsibilities,” he said.



William Barr is no John Stennis. He's the Winston Wolf of embattled Republican presidencies. That's why he was hired, and that's the job he's doing.



Mr. Barr said that officials from the department and the special counsel’s office were scrubbing the document of four categories of information: classified material, secret grand jury testimony, details pertinent to ongoing law enforcement investigations and statements “that would unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties.”

That final category is so broad that House Democrats, who initially set an April 2 deadline for Mr. Barr’s delivery, have repeatedly said they will view as suspect anything short of an unredacted report and the evidence collected. During Wednesday’s hearing, Mr. Nadler argued that Republicans set the precedent for the subpoena during the last Congress, and they supported Democrats’ requests for documents and information during the investigations of Bill Clinton and Richard M. Nixon.



It's headed for the courts now, for which it always has been headed in one way or another. But, for the moment, anyway, the Mueller report is the exclusive property of the people whom we can trust the least.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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