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Judiciary Committee Democrats plan to vote Wednesday on whether to send a contempt citation for Attorney General William Barr to the full House of Representatives after Barr once again missed a deadline Monday morning to release the full Mueller report to Congress.
"Resolved. That William P. Barr, Attorney General of the United States, shall be found to be in contempt of Congress for failure to comply with a congressional subpoena," reads the official two-page contempt citation, followed by 25 pages of background information.
The initial deadline for Barr to meet the subpoena was last Wednesday. After Barr declined to comply, Judiciary Committee chair Jerry Nadler made an effort to broker a compromise on how the materials would be released, but Barr rejected that negotiation, too. Barr has offered to let a small group of congressional Republicans and Democrats see certain redacted portions of the special counsel's report, but not in its entirety.
“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,” chairman Nadler said in a statement, adding the Barr's conduct has "hindered" the panel's oversight function. Nadler said that he would be willing to table the contempt proceedings if the Justice Department made a "good-faith" effort to work with Democrats to provide the materials they are seeking.
The citation notes that Congress is "the only body able to hold the president to account" for wrongdoing since Robert Mueller accepted the Justice Department policy of not indicting a sitting president. The citation also says that part of the panel's investigation includes "whether to approve articles of impeachment with respect to the President or any other Administration official, as well as the consideration of other steps such as censure or issuing criminal, civil or administrative referrals."