Posted on 04/30/2019 8:18:04 AM PDT by jazusamo
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler is threatening to subpoena Attorney General Bill Barr. Barr threatened to back out of scheduled and voluntary testimony on Thursday after Nadler changed the ground rules for the hearing. Nadler wants Committee attorneys, in addition to lawmakers, to ask questions about the Mueller report. He argues this is standard practice and that Barr should comply.
But according to Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who used to be in the House, Nadler's demands for this format style are unusual.
"Typically the way we handle these hearings, for better or worse, on Capitol Hill is that the senators and the representatives on both sides alternate for five to seven minutes apiece. And you don’t have the staff questioning a witness. Now that has been done in certain extraordinary occasions in our lifetimes, but that is usually something negotiated with the witness," Cotton told Salem Radio Network host Hugh Hewitt Tuesday morning. "So the Attorney General of the United States is well within past practice here of saying that he is willing to come and spend two to three hours with the traditional format, but he’s not going to subject himself to a daylong interrogation by staffers who are not elected by the American people to represent them in Washington."
"This is not just a matter for the Judiciary Committee and the Attorney General. Cabinet members are always busy. They always need to come up for oversight on a periodic basis, but it’s always subject to negotiations around their schedule and their availability in these formats," he continued. "I’ll just say this to Chairman Nadler and the Democrats. If they are incapable of going toe to toe with Bill Barr, if they have put people on the Judiciary Committee who are not skilled questioners and talented attorneys, that’s a you problem. Why should Bill Barr accommodate their failures and the fact that they don’t have talented lawyers on the committee who can go toe to toe with a talented lawyer like Bill Barr? Why should he bend over backwards to accommodate them? They should be able to do the basic job that their voters elected them to do, which is to conduct oversight of the executive branch."
As of Tuesday morning, an agreement between DOJ and Nadler has not been reached.
Tom Cotton is right on, two Dem members as examples include Sheila Jackson Lee and Hank Johnson.
Nadler is working for China
Sounds like a trap to me.
Nads is just what one would picture as a Dem, total loser.
Exactly...AG Barr volunteered to testify before the Committee and a week before the hearing Nadler throws in the bit about staff attorneys.
Nice to have a Tom Cotton sighting. He’s been hiding under his desk despite being on the key Senate intel committee. Very disappointing to see him enter Marco Rubio territory.
Just as you should only say one word to the FBI (”LAWYER”), use a different one with Congress (”NUTS”).
If Barr is subpoenaed, he should “open a line of inquiry” into Nadler being an agent of a foreign power.
I like how Cotton phrased his challenge : Why can’t the demcrat elected representatives (all supposedly lawyers themselves!) ask another lawyer their own questions? Why does a democrat need to hire a lawyer on his staff to ask questions?
All those subpoenas issued by Republicans indicate that a subpoena is something like a suggestion. Have the Democrats established a precedent?
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Nadler’s rule would amount to putting Barr on trial.
To heck with that.
You mean Nadless, aka The Waddler, a hateful evil jerk.
If they are not capable enough to ask their own questions they should not be on the committee. This isn’t a mature hour here, this is the people who are supposed to make laws for the entire country.
The IDIOT Dems only READ what their staffs write....they know NOTHING!
Jabba the Nadler doesn’t couldn’t care less about Barr’s testimony. Nadler wants to grandstand that Barr is “withholding” info from Congress. I wouldn’t put it past Nadler to try and have Barr arrested and jailed for “defying” him, which the sycophant media will applaud.
No reason to wait. Nadler’s behavior will not improve over time.
The “fun” part about that is the DOJ is who would have to enforce Nadler’s subpoena. Not happening - Barr is AG. Eric Holder is a good example of how that works - even after a ‘contempt of Congress’ vote, nothing happened.
Years ago I watched a democrat on TV who was struggling to read the questions that had been written out for her to ask - too many 'big words'... she kep stumbling.
Funny stuff.
This situation's worse - democrats are looking for someone who can 'think on their feet' - - ask rational follow-up questions - not just the ones written out for them.
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