Just in from the House Judiciary Committee:
Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) sent a letter signed by 23 Judiciary Committee Democratic Members confirming Attorney General William Barr will testify before the Committee on March 31st to address numerous concerns regarding his leadership of the Department of Justice and the President’s improper influence over the Department and our criminal justice system.
From their scathing letter:
In the interest of transparency, we wish to be candid about one set of concerns we plan to address at the hearing.
Since President Trump took office, we have repeatedly warned you and your predecessors that the misuse of our criminal justice system for political purposes is both dangerous to our democracy and unacceptable to the House Judiciary Committee.
Our Republican colleagues have warned the Department of the same. We have been consistent—and bipartisan—in this message for years.
In your tenure as Attorney General, you have engaged in a pattern of conduct in legal matters relating to the President that raises significant concerns for this Committee.
In the past week alone, you have taken steps that raise grave questions about your leadership of the Department of Justice. These include:
-The ongoing developments following the removal of U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu, who oversaw the prosecutions of President Trump’s deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates, President Trump’s former national security advisor Michael Flynn, and President Trump’s longtime political adviser Roger Stone.
-The creation of a new “process” by which President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani can feed the Department of Justice information, through you, about the President’s political rivals.
-The decision to overrule your career prosecutors and significantly reduce the recommended sentence for Roger Stone, who has been convicted for lying under oath, at the apparent request of the President—a decision that led to all four prosecutors handling the case to withdraw from the proceedings in protest.