Washington DC, June 7: US House of Representatives committee has on Thursday unveiled a resolution to hold Attorney-General William Barr and ex-White House counsel Don McGahn in civil contempt for declining to testify about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation report on Russia’s meddling into 2016 United States presidential election.
According to Al-Jazeera news reports, the resolution would authorize the House lawyers to seek enforcement in a federal court of subpoenas which was issued to McGahn, Barr and other former and present Trump administration officials. Democratic leaders intended to bring the resolution to a full house voting on Tuesday.
“The Trump administration is waging an unprecedented campaign of stonewalling and obstruction on issues the American people care about, including its attack on healthcare, its inhumane family separation policy, and the countless egregious examples laid out in the Mueller report,” Representative James McGovern, chairman of the Rules Committee, said in an official statement.
President Trump has been engaged in a spat with Democrats over access to documents and witness since Barr released the redacted version of Mueller’s probe report.
The voting has come following Barr’s reiterated declination to release the full unredacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe report into Russia’s interference into Trump’s 2016 presidential election campaign.
The US president has directed McGahn not to comply with the House committee request for notes and testimony.
On May 8, the judiciary committee has voted to hold Barr in contempt. Negotiations between Barr and the committee for access to the complete report had failed to reach an agreement.
Earlier this week, House majority head Steny Hoyer told reporters, Trump was engaged in “one of the largest cover-ups in any administration that I can recall”.
On June 4, Hoyer’s statement was quoted by CNN as saying, “Next Tuesday, I will bring a resolution to the House Floor forcing Attorney General Barr and former White House counsel McGahn to comply with Congressional subpoenas that have been duly issued by the House Judiciary Committee.”
The judiciary committee of the US House has already voted in favour of holding Barr in contempt of Congress, sending it for further actions.
However, Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, has declined to accept the Democrats’ demand to open impeachment proceeding.