House speaker Nancy Pelosi joined Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler Thursday in declaring that the Trump administration’s refusal to comply with congressional oversight demands amounts to a “constitutional crisis.”
“Yes, I do agree with Chairman Nadler because the administration has decided that they’re not going to honor their oath of office,” Pelosi told reporters.
Nadler declared a constitutional crisis Thursday in response to President Trump’s assertion of executive privilege over the unredacted Mueller report and the underlying evidence used to produce it.
“There can be no higher stakes than this attempt to abrogate all power to the executive branch away from Congress and, more importantly, the American people,” Nadler told reporters Wednesday. “We talked for a long time about approaching a constitutional crisis — we’re now in it. We are now in a constitutional crisis.”
Nadler’s comments came after the Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt over his refusal to turn over the Mueller report and the underlying evidence. Democrats have not yet announced when the full House will vote on holding Barr in contempt, but Nadler said Wednesday that he would like to proceed toward that end “rapidly.”
“In terms of timing, when we’re ready, we’ll come to the floor,” Pelosi said of the timing of a final vote.
“There might be some other contempt of Congress issues that we want to deal with at the same time,” she added, likely referring to a possible contempt citation for former White House counsel Don McGahn, whose notes have been subpoenaed by the Judiciary Committee in connection with its probe of possible obstruction of justice by the president.
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