In an interview with CNN which was broadcast on Wednesday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said that President Donald Trump “wants to make himself a king,” Mediaite reports.
Nadler made the remarks while discussing his committee’s plan to vote on holding Attorney General William Barr in contempt. Echoing criticism from other top Democrats, Nadler said that Barr has become a “personal attorney” to Trump, instead of representing the United States.
Nadler then doubled down, claiming that the attorney general is “enabling the president to defy the law, to defy any kind of accountability, and to act as a monarch.”
According to the top Democrat, the fact that the Justice Department has refused to allow Congress to view the unredacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report is simply “another instance of lawlessness” by the Trump administration.
Nadler said that the House Judiciary Committee has “no choice” but to hold a contempt vote against Barr.
“They made it twice as necessary to proceed with this contempt because you cannot have a government in which the president can conceal all information about his own wrongdoing and about anything else. He wants to make himself a king and Congress cannot permit that.”
Nadler acknowledged that the William Barr saga will likely not unfold anytime soon, given that the issue will almost certainly be taken to the courts. Nadler confidently claimed that the law will side with the Democratic Party.
As Mediaite notes, the tensions between House Democrats and members of the Trump administration are nothing new, but Barr would be the first administration official to be held in contempt of Congress.
For this to happen, however, the contempt vote needs to pass through Nadler’s House Judiciary Committee, before reaching the full House of Representatives. There, the Democrats will decide whether to start legal proceedings against the attorney general.
Rep. Jerry Nadler: “”Today we consider a report recommending that the House of Representatives hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for defying a valid subpoena issued by this committee. This is not a step we take lightly.” https://t.co/tyQwXRUqN0 pic.twitter.com/QWWhn55d6i
— The Hill (@thehill) May 8, 2019
House Democrats targeting William Barr comes as no surprise. As previously reported by The Inquisitr , the Democrats have vowed to use “every means at our disposal” to take down Barr, who they have continually accused of covering up for President Trump — and of purposely misinterpreting Mueller’s findings.
There are a number of legal routes the Democrats can take, and some of them could even lead to the attorney general’s impeachment. However, that remains highly unlikely, given that the GOP-controlled Senate would likely push back against such a decision.
NEW: Democrats want Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate Barr https://t.co/Jn0cW6BTYS pic.twitter.com/XLmUSDrudY
— The Hill (@thehill) May 7, 2019
The fight between Barr and Congress has been escalating for quite some time, and the majority of voters have sided with Congress. According to a Politico poll released on Wednesday, only 29 percent of voters approve of the way the attorney general has handled the release of Robert Mueller’s final report.