{"id":122479,"date":"2019-05-13T16:14:02","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T20:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=122479"},"modified":"2019-05-13T16:14:19","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T20:14:19","slug":"group-insanity-democrat-wackadoodles-seriously-consider-jailing-ag-barr-for-following-the-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=122479","title":{"rendered":"POLITICAL INSANITY: Democrat Wackadoodles Seriously Consider Jailing AG Barr for Following the Law"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Calls to jail Attorney General Barr grow from Democratic ranks<\/h1>\n<p><!--more-->By Brooke Singman | Fox News<\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/video.foxnews.com\/v\/embed.js?id=6034202035001&#038;w=466&#038;h=263\"><\/script><noscript>Watch the latest video at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\">foxnews.com<\/a><\/noscript><br \/>\n<strong>Nadler says House has no choice but to hold Attorney General Barr in contempt<\/strong><\/p>\n<h5>Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Rep. Jerry Nadler speaks out ahead of contempt proceedings against the attorney general; Catherine Herridge has the latest from Capitol Hill.<\/h5>\n<p class=\"speakable\">In the days since the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/cohen-defends-chicken-stunt-aimed-at-barr-says-it-was-planned-night-before\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Attorney General Bill Barr<\/a>in contempt of Congress, more and more Democratic lawmakers have opened the door to the possibility of arresting the Justice Department leader in a bid to force cooperation &#8212;\u00a0despite party powerbrokers signaling opposition to such a radical step.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">The committee last week voted to hold Barr\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/trump-asserts-executive-privilege-to-block-release-of-full-unredacted-mueller-report\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in contempt<\/a>\u00a0for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena for Special Counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s unredacted Russia report and underlying\u00a0materials, as President Trump asserted executive privilege to protect those same files from release.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">The panel&#8217;s party-line decision\u00a0sent the measure to the House floor for a final vote. If approved, the measure would be referred to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia\u2014who could choose not to act. House Democrats could also pursue a lawsuit.<\/p>\n<p>But there&#8217;s a more drastic step that has been gaining traction among some of Barr&#8217;s fiercest critics &#8212; the possibility of dragging Barr in to testify or\u00a0jailing the AG for defying the subpoena.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., was one of the first calling for the House to pursue \u201cinherent contempt,\u201d which would have Barr arrested by the sergeant at arms\u2014a tactic reportedly not employed since the 1930s.<\/p>\n<p>Several other lawmakers are now warming to the idea.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe know how to arrest people around here,\u201d Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2019\/05\/12\/jerry-nadler-trump-subpeona-1317458\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Politico<\/a>. \u201cAnd if we need to arrest someone, the [House] sergeant-at-arms will know how to do it. I\u2019m not afraid of that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201cIf they can arrest my constituents, we can arrest someone else who\u2019s disobeying the law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., also touted Congress\u2019 \u201cinherent authority,\u201d which she said was \u201cat our disposal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a number of steps we\u2019re looking at that we can take,\u201d Jayapal told Politico. \u201cPeople feel like we\u2019re progressing at the appropriate pace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But despite rank-and-file Democrats calling for the arrest of Barr, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., seems cool to the idea. Last week, she pushed back when asked about the potential step.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe do have a jail in the basement of the Capitol, but if we were arresting all of the people in the administration, we would have an overcrowded jail situation,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m not for that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Inherent contempt is one of three contempt options available, along with criminal contempt (under which an individual is charged with a crime) and civil judgment (leading to a civil court process).<\/p>\n<p>And while inherent contempt has not been used in decades, some lawmakers suggest it\u2019s appropriate to consider in this situation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a reason why we don\u2019t do it, but there\u2019s a reason why we haven\u2019t had to even talk about it,\u201d Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., told Politico. \u201cBecause we\u2019ve had administrations that have negotiated in good faith and tried to work for the good of the American people rather than the good of a particular incumbent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Last week, Cohen told CNN\u2019s Anderson Cooper that Barr needs to be \u201clocked up until he agrees to participate\u201d and come to a hearing before the committee.<\/p>\n<p>Several op-eds, including one by former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich, also supported such a move.<\/p>\n<p>Many Democrats including Pelosi are also claiming that Barr lied to Congress.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe lied to Congress. And if anybody else did that, it would be considered a crime,\u201d Pelosi told reporters last month. \u201cNobody is above the law. Not the president of the United States. Not the attorney general.<\/p>\n<p>Pelosi\u2019s public comments came after she, according to\u00a0Politico, told Rep. Charlie Crist, D-Fla., during a private caucus meeting Thursday:\u00a0\u201cWe saw [Barr] commit a crime when he answered your question.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She was referring to an April 9 hearing, where Crist had asked whether Barr knew what prompted reports that prosecutors on the special counsel team were frustrated with his initial summary. Barr said he did not.<\/p>\n<p>But earlier this month, The Washington Post first reported that Special Counsel Robert Mueller contacted Barr, both in a letter and in a phone call, to express concerns after Barr released his four-page summary of Mueller\u2019s findings in March. Mueller pushed Barr to release the executive summaries written by the special counsel\u2019s office. However, according to both the Post and the Justice Department, Mueller made clear that he did not feel that Barr\u2019s summary was inaccurate. Instead, Mueller told Barr that media coverage of the letter had \u201cmisinterpreted\u201d the results of the probe concerning obstruction of justice.<\/p>\n<p>Pelosi was also asked if Barr should go to jail for the alleged crime.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a process involved here and as I said, I\u2019ll say it again, the committee will have to come to how we will proceed,\u201d Pelosi said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSpeaker Pelosi\u2019s baseless attack\u00a0on the Attorney General is reckless, irresponsible and false,\u201d Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in response.<\/p>\n<p>Democrats have blasted Barr for weeks over his handling of the special counsel\u2019s report. Barr initially\u00a0released a four-page summary of Mueller\u2019s findings, announcing in late March that the special counsel found no evidence of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election. Mueller did not come to a conclusion on whether the president obstructed justice, but Barr said the evidence was not sufficient to charge the president with such an offense.<\/p>\n<p>While Democrats have criticized Barr for that swift conclusion, they\u00a0have sought the completely unredacted version of the report in a bid to learn more about what information Mueller gathered regarding the obstruction probe.\u00a0The report released publicly last month had redactions covering sensitive sources and methods, grand jury material, and other areas to protect the reputational interests of \u201cperipheral players\u201d in the investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Barr and his deputies,\u00a0however, have countered that they&#8217;ve made available to select members a version with minimal redactions &#8212; and Democrats have declined to look at it.<\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/calls-to-jail-attorney-general-barr-grow-from-democratic-ranks\">https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/calls-to-jail-attorney-general-barr-grow-from-democratic-ranks<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Calls to jail Attorney General Barr grow from Democratic ranks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=122479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=122479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=122479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=122479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}