Official editorial of the Washington Examiner, May 9:
It’s just three weeks since House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler subpoenaed the report without redactions, and all its underlying evidence, from special counsel Robert Mueller relating to his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Despite this, Nadler, D-N.Y., and fellow panel Democrats voted 24-16 Wednesday to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for failing to comply in the blink of an eye with their demand. Never mind that it would have been illegal for Barr to do so. It will be for the full House to decide whether to support the contempt vote, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has said she’ll follow the committee’s lead.
Democrats took turns grandstanding at the hearing, and simply ignored the fact that it would be against the law for Barr to disseminate some redacted material in Mueller’s report. Nor did they acknowledge the mammoth amount of work that would be required to organize and hand over Mueller’s mountains of evidence.
It’s, of course, not surprising that no Democrat objected to Nadler’s precipitous actions for, in 2019, congressional oversight consisting of forming up on one side of the committee room and barking at the other side.
Congress invokes official contempt charges rarely, indeed only three times in the past 35 years. It is meant to be a last resort. But in 2012, the last time it was used, Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt for refusing to provide Congress with subpoenaed material, and Holder was a Democrat. So this is payback. But it should be noted that Holder had by then defied Congress for 203 days before House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., first formally threatened him with contempt charges. Even then, Issa gave Holder an additional 48 days before his committee actually held a vote. And Issa was demanding answers about a Justice Department scandal that had actually resulted in the murder of at least one government official.
In shockingly sharp contrast, Nadler went from subpoena to contempt vote in 19 days…. [The full editorial is at this link.]