Nation in 'crisis,' Pelosi says

Administration not honoring oath of office, she declares

“We won’t go any faster than the facts take us, or any slower,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday on Capitol Hill.
“We won’t go any faster than the facts take us, or any slower,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday on Capitol Hill.

WASHINGTON -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that the United States is in a "constitutional crisis" and warned that House Democrats might move to hold more administration officials in contempt of Congress if they continue their refusals to comply with committee subpoenas.

Speaking to reporters in the Capitol, Pelosi said she agreed with Rep. Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who said Wednesday that the nation is in a constitutional crisis after his committee recommended that the House hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over an unredacted version of the special counsel's report, along with the report's underlying evidence.

"The administration has decided they are not going to honor their oath of office," she said.

Pelosi said Democrats would take the contempt citation to the floor for a vote of the full House "when we are ready."

"The president thinks it is a laughing matter," Pelosi said. "This is about the American people and their right to know, and their election that is at stake -- and that a foreign government intervened in our election -- so we can prevent it from happening again."

"We won't go any faster than the facts take us, or any slower," she said.

Ahead of Wednesday's vote, President Donald Trump for the first time invoked the principle of executive privilege, claiming the right to block lawmakers from the full report.

Democrats have not settled on a precise date for the vote to hold Barr in contempt of Congress, although Nadler said after Wednesday's vote that he wanted it scheduled "rapidly."

Democratic leaders may wait to pair the Judiciary Committee's contempt recommendations with another, most likely from the Intelligence Committee should its conflict with the Justice Department get to that point.

The committee's chairman, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., issued a subpoena Thursday for Barr to hand over the full Mueller report and evidence, as well as all counterintelligence and foreign intelligence generated by the special counsel's investigations. He gave the Justice Department until Wednesday to comply. If Barr ignores that deadline, the Intelligence Committee would probably hold its own contempt proceedings and send another recommendation to the House floor.

There are other possible contempt citations in the wings as well, including for Donald McGahn, the former White House counsel who is under subpoena by the Judiciary Committee, and witnesses in unrelated Oversight and Reform Committee investigations.

"In terms of timing, when we're ready, we'll come to the floor," Pelosi said. "There might be some other contempt of Congress issues that we want to deal with at the same time."

Pelosi has been urging caution since the release of the report by Robert Mueller, the special counsel. She believes that Democrats campaigned on addressing issues like health care and the high cost of prescription drugs, and must keep their focus on priorities for voters.

She reiterated that message Thursday, while at the same time leaving the door open for impeachment.

"We're going to do the right thing, that's just the way it is, and it is going to be based on fact and law and patriotism, not partisanship or anything else," she said.

Later Thursday, Trump said he would leave it to Barr to decide whether Mueller testifies before Congress on the investigation.

His comment was a seeming reversal, since Trump wrote over the weekend on Twitter that Mueller should not be allowed to appear before Congress. Barr has told lawmakers that he has no objection to Mueller testifying.

"It's not up to Barr to determine whether he testifies, or the president either," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., a senior member of the Judiciary Committee. It is up to Congress, she said.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a former constitutional law professor, said Trump's remark was a "monarchical reaction" and that the White House was "really portraying a lack of understanding about how the system of separation of powers works in America."

Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 Republican, accused the Democrats of running "a kangaroo court," adding, "for two years they lied to the American people and said there would be collusion and said there was obstruction, and none of it was true."

While Mueller found insufficient evidence to file charges against Trump for conspiring or colluding with Russia to influence the 2016 elections, he cited at least 10 specific instances in which Trump may have obstructed the investigation.

Though the White House initially hesitated on invoking executive privilege over the report, Trump told his staff and political advisers in recent weeks to refuse to cooperate with Democrats, declaring that the party's goal was simply to damage him politically going into his re-election campaign. The coming legal battle could stretch into 2020.

Executive privilege is the president's power to keep information from the courts, Congress and the public to protect the confidentiality of the Oval Office decision-making process.

After the release of Mueller's report, Pelosi promised a series of hearings and investigations that would allow the American people to see the facts for themselves and decide whether impeachment was warranted.

Democratic leaders including Pelosi are increasingly casting the decision about impeachment in terms of the Constitution's system of checks and balances -- a message they believe voters can easily relate to.

"Will the administration violate the Constitution of the United States and not abide by the request of Congress in its legitimate oversight responsibility?" she asked, adding, "Every day they are advertising their obstruction of justice by ignoring subpoenas and by just declaring that people shouldn't come speak to Congress."

She said Congress is on "a path that is producing results and gathering information, and some of that information is that this administration wants to have a constitutional crisis because they do not respect the oath of office that they take."

Information for this article was contributed by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Nicholas Fandos and Annie Karni of The New York Times; and by Mary Clare Jalonick, Lisa Mascaro, Jonathan Lemire, Mike Balsamo and Laurie Kellman of The Associated Press.

A Section on 05/10/2019

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