of the committee? i have consistently stated that if we are to do our jobs as members of the house judiciary committee, all of the members require meaningful access to the report and the underlying documents. we need to be able to confer with each other about what we have seen. we need to be able to take official action on what we have seen if warranted. and if necessary, we need to be able to inform a court of law of what we have learned, even if perhaps under seal. if we can find an accommodation that satisfies those basic principles i would be happy to continue negotiating with the department of justice. but now invoking executive privilege and all of the materials of the subpoena, that has come to a screeching halt. the administration has announced loud and clear that it does not recognize congress as a co equal branch of government with constitutional oversight authority and it will continue to wage its campaign of obstruction. when the administration says it will oppose all subpoenas, presumably

of the committee? i have consistently stated that if we are to do our jobs as members of the house judiciary committee, all of the members require meaningful access to the report and underlying documents. we need to be able to confer with each other about what we have seen. we need to be able to take official action on what we have seen, if warranted. and if necessary, we need to be able to inform a court of law of what we have learned, even if perhaps under seal. if we can find an accommodation that satisfies those basic principles, i would be happy to continue negotiating with the department of justice. now invoking executive privilege to all the documents in our subpoena that process has come to a screeching halt. the administration has announced loud and clear it does not recognize congress as an co-equal branch of government and will continue to wage its campaign of obstruction. when the administration says it will oppose all subpoena, regardless of its merits, it is saying it does not recognize c

the committee wants him to answer questions. committee is entitled to have its procedures. the minority on the committee is in titled to oppose the manner of asking questions and that is what the motion before us does -- that is what their opposition to the motion before us does. however, this motion is a very simple motion. staff.it questioning by you are either for it or you are against it. we have to get to an important piece of legislation. the ranking member told us he was going to engage in tactics. please see those now. -- we see those now. instead of opposing the motion and explaining the reason -- >> debate the motion. >> point of order. rep. nadler: instead of just opposing the motion and explaining the reasons for opposing, they are offering silly amendments just to waste time. we can debate the motion. we will debate the motion, but we are going to get to a vote on the motion within half an hour because we have to go to an important bill and the motion is very simple. a did you propose to allow staff to question a witness or you don't. the motion does not need l

sdp as the committee got underway at 9:30 this afternoon, the committee had written to president trump at the white house this morning requesting that the president make an assertion of executive privilege over all the material covered under the mueller report, and that's exactly what the white house did shortly thereafter. a statement from the white house and a couple of tweets here. the attorney general has been transparent and accommodating throughout this process, including by releasing the no collusion, no conspiracy, no obstruction report to the public and offering to testify before the committee. the attempts to work with the committee have been flatly rejected. they didn't like the results of the report and now they want a re-do faced with chairman nadler's blatant abuse of power and the attorney general's request, the president has no other option other than to make a protective assertion of executive privilege. that's from the white house. again, we're going to go back to the committee when they return at about 2:30 eastern or so. we'll show you some of the earlier deliberati

of the committee? i have consistently stated that if we are to do our jobs as members of the house judiciary committee, all of the members require meaningful access to the report and the underlying documents. we need to be able to confer with each other about what we have seen. we need to be able to take official action on what we have seen if warranted. and if necessary, we need to be able to inform a court of law of what we have learned, even if perhaps under seal. if we can find an accommodation that satisfies those basic princip principles, i would be happy to continue negotiating with the department of justice. that process has come to a screeching halt. the administration has announced, loud and clear, that it does not recognize congress' as a co-equal branch of government with independent constitutional oversight authority and it will continue to wage its campaign of obstruction when the administration says it will oppose all subpoenas, it is saying that it does not recognize congress having a c

the committee wants them to answer questions. the committee is entitled to have its procedures.s minority on the committee -- can oppose the manner of asking questions part that motion -- that is their opposition to the motion before us. however, this motion is a simple motion. to permit questioning by staff. you are either for it or against it. to an important piece of legislation. the ranking member told us in his opening statement he would engage in tactics. instead of opposing the motion, which they are entitled to do -- >> we will debate the motion. >> a point of order. instead of just opposing the motion and explaining, they are instead offering, frankly, silly amendments to waste time. and wedebate the motion will debate the motion. we will get to a vote on the motion within a half-hour. we have to go to newport deal. the motion is simple. either you propose to allow staff to question the witness or you don't. the motion does not need a lot of amendments. that is simply dilatory in this asmittee cannot function members seek to waste as much time as possible. that is not a

the committee? no. apparently not. in fact, the chairman hasn't even reviewed the unredacted version that's been provided. i listened with interest as the chairman mentioned in his remarks how important it is that we all read the report. but he hasn't gone down to read the report. this is a charade. and i have never seen anything like it. 225 days progressed from subpoena of eric holder to a contempt vote. this circus, 19 days. it's clear that this is just a game for the majority. and now that they have a bad hand, they're bluffing. give us the unredacted report. bill barr is biased. don't worry about what the law says. the only bias is the blind hatred of this president and disdain for the rules of this house. and the rule of law that is in this constitution. and the views and actions of the majority, the drive for impeachment trumps all, and yes, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's a duck. so they're trying to itch people the duck. -- impeach the duck. it trums the truth. it trumps

kris in committee, he had no -- mr. crist in committee, he had no idea that mr. mueller or anybody in the special counsel investigation would have objected. that's not true he lied when mr. crist asked him that question. that's beyond contempt, that's a lie. so we're depending on mr. barr's decision of who was on the preferry. we're talkinging about the opportunity for congress to do its proper oversight as described in article 1 of the constitution which is being trampled upon. the trump administration refuses to respond to any subpoenas. destroying article 1 and congress' prerogatives. now, we had a question, i think it was maybe the ranking member said, we should be doing legislation and how many signatures, how many bills have been signed into law by this committee? well, ask mitch mcconnell, who has declared that the senate is a graveyard for all legislation that comes from the house. we have passed outstanding legislation out of this committee, it's gone to the graveyard, where mitch mcconnell who first killed supreme court nominees of the last novet united

you mentioned you were on the energy commerce committee, a very powerful committee. you're close with speaker pelosi. your mother once ran for senate in florida. what are your political ambitions? do you have your eye on leadership? perhaps a statewide office run? rep. castor: i have a wonderful district. i intend to stay focused on the issues that matter to my neighbors here in tampa. and that is tackling the rising cost of health care. lifting wages. the tampa bay area, we are tied to tourism and real estate. we are lower than the average wage across the country. i want to see great progress on clean energy and tackling the climate crisis. so the energy and commerce committee is the best place to do that. so i probably will continue to focus on my legislative efforts through that committee. nick: one of the issues that's come up recently, off climate change for a minute, the trump administration has filed a request in federal court to strike down the affordable care act. now, what do you think the energy and commerce committee can do about that? how are house democ

it changes the reference on that page to judiciary committee to committee on the judiciary. with this modest change, i urge the committee to support the amendment. i now recognize the ranking member mr. collins for any comments he may have on the amendment. >> on the amendment itself i don't have any. i will make one comment that was made in your previous opening statement. the chairman of now the oversight committee was served in his official capacity in that committee, just a clarification for the record there as we go forward. with that i have no objection. >> are there any amendments to the amendment on the nature of the substitute? >> mr. chairman. i move to strike the last word. >> the gentleman is recognized. >> our democratic colleagues seem to be on a mission. they're determined to destroy attorney general barr or at least discredit him in the eyes of the american people. the attorney general agreed to appear before this committee last week and was ready to answer any and all questions about the mueller report. however, mr. chairman, you and your democratic colleagu

committee. the house intelligence committee issued a subpoena to the justice department for the full mueller report including counter intelligence materials and the republican led senate intelligence committee subpoenaed donald trump trump jr. to testify about his knowledge of the trump tower moscow project. we're going to get to all of it but first, it was a party line vote, 24-16 the final margin in the house judiciary committee earlier today to advance a measure that would hold attorney general barr in contempt of congress for failing to comply with a subpoena to hand over the unredacted mueller report. that contempt resolution that passed the committee heads to the full house for a potential vote. it is not clear, though, when that might be. this marks a major escalation, it's a fight that now seems all but certain to land in court. after today's vote the chairman of the house judiciary committee jerry nadler of new york claimed that the country is now in a constitutional crisis. >> we today

committee? rep. castor: the good news is that since the house is in democratic hands, we have had about 30 congressional hearings on the cost of the changing climate and how we develop solutions to move forward. is veryn new deal general, so what we have to do moving forward is to put some meat on the bone. -- climate change impacts every facet of our life. the leaders in our armed services say that changing climate is a national security threat. so, we have to make our bases more resilient, make our military more nimble, and focus on areas in the world where climate change is going to foment great disruption, including massive migration. some of that, we are already seeing. it is also a moral issue. we have a moral responsibility to our children and grandchildren to leave the planet better than we found it, or at least in a livable world. we have discussed how it is a transportation, infrastructure issue. it is a science issue. -- i cano make sure tell you sitting here in tampa bay that we need

this is are a committee chairman going on with his committee. this is the first of the trump children to be subpoenaed. obviously, we've seen some other jared kushner, the son-in-law, others come to the committee. this is the first subpoena. people outside the white house like donald trump junior don't have some of the same protections in the white house. this puts them at a, you know, in a mind, really. we don't really know what donald trump junior will do. we hear he may not come forward for the -- you know, to testify. we're not sure what he's going to do. for the president, this is hitting home and is a personal thing when his children are getting involved. >>> we can contrast the urgent tone jerry nadler was having, what robert is describing nancy pelosi saying in her sitdown with him toda we can contrast th tone jerry nadler was having, what robert is describing nancy pelosi saying in her sitdown with him today, chris christie at an event moderated by stephanie ruhle looked at this contempt move against the attorney general and invokes the

of the committee? i have consistently stated that if we are to do our jobs as members of the house judiciary committee, all of the members require meaningful access to the report and the underlying documents. we need to be able to confer with each other about what we have seen. we need to be able to take official action on what we have seen if warranted. and if necessary, we need to be able to inform a court of law of what we feel learned even if perhaps under seal. if we can find an adccommodat n accommodation -- that process has come to a streechin a scree. when the administration says it will oppose all subpoenas, presumably regardless of its merits, it is saying that it does not recognize congress having a constitutional oversight authority over the executive branch. to those who consider the matter case closed in the words of some of our leaders and urge us to simply move on, i would say to do so is to announce loud and clear that such a course of action has the effect of aiding and abetting in th

of the science committee. we did very vigorous oversight on the patriot act, as the chairman, the gentleman from new york, recognized. i did vigorous oversight of our involvement with the russians in terms of the space station, as those who were around here at that time recognized, but in ten years as a committee chairman, i never issued a subpoena. and the reason i never issued a subpoena is that i was able to get the information the committee needed to do its oversight simply by negotiating, by writing letters to the agency heads, some of which i admit used some very tart language, but at least i was able to get the information that the committee needed to make the agencies operate better without issuing a subpoena. what we're seeing here is subpoena first and then figure out, you know, what we can do to make people embarrassed because they cannot comply with all parts of the subpoena. mr. barr can't do that under rule 6e. so the chairman has put the attorney general between a rock and a hard place. comply w

put a pen, find a committee. but you don't have to continue on and on and on here about the impeachment agenda saying he is terrified to come before this committee. he is not terrified before this or anybody especially the senate which they extended the questioning time on. he answered the questions. as the chairman told me yesterday, it's not a matter of whether we disagree or agree. you can agree with the attorney general or disagree with the attorney general but not hearing from him is a travesty for this committee today. but i would remiss if i did not mention the largest tragedy of this day that actually was from yesterday. the chairman just stated a few moments ago that we can't let moments pass and i agree completely. because what happened yesterday on this dais was a travesty. when you do not recognize members for valid motions. when you call things dilatory questioning the motive of what members are doing it for, i have sat on this committee for six years and have sat through hours of motions to strike t

the committee. >> the time is expired. the witness may answer the question. >> i would agree with the professor. i would also add in cases of large volume, this committee and criminal investigations as well often receive documents on a rolling basis in which you begin your production and you explain thr a lot that will take a few weeks or months to do it. that accommodation would be reasonable. it's not been put on the table by the department. >> the time is expired. the gentleman from arizona. >> thank you to all the witnesses for being here today. executive privilege is is a critical protection for the branch. presidential advisers know there advice is subject to subpoena by political opponents. the effect would be advisers are less willing to give advice as professor shaw has previously testified today. for using political purpose is a genuine and legitimate concern. that's exactly what this chairman has been doing. there was so many other things that could have been brought before this committee

the ways and means committee, long committee report, long committee language, they deliberated over this language, concluded that the right thing to do was to help all american families. but somewhere between that unanimous vote in committee and late last night in the rules committee, the decision came down from on high, and by on high i do mean your side of the aisle, madam speaker, because when you sit in the speaker's chair, you have that kind of authority, the rules committee is in fact the speaker's committee. that said we're going to rip this language out. we offered an amendment last night and i think it's only right, right, folks comes here to watch the people's business, they think we're going to operate a transparent building here and we work very hard to do that. we offered an amendment last night in the rules committee to allow a simple vote of the people's house on this provision. if you don't like parents supplementing their students' education at home, so be it. i don't understand it, but so be it. but let's have a vote on it here, just like they did in the ways and means

it was a super committee, i served on what is now known as the not so for committee. there were lots of good ideas people from both sides discuss these issues in good faith. deliver their was going to be the sequester was instead abide adjust mandatory spending and deal with revenues and if we did not come up with a plan we are now eight years into the sequester and congress of course year-by-year tries to take off the rough edges about. the only reason he accepted that was the whole premise would be used for deficit reduction. that is been stood on his head and now reconciliation is to increase deficits. that was in place and you can love or hate you did under the conrad roll right? and made a very popular. exactly, that rule that was in place and forced the affordable care act was paid for. the conrad rule was eliminated in 2015. we just had a tax-cut bill the purpose of reconciliation was to reduce the deficit. in fact, as we know it is dramatically increased. at the deficit according to the congressional budget office. not in the last ten years, this must have def

he's a committee member of the house intelligence committee. thanks very much for joining us. >> good to be with you, wolf. >> let's get with the breaking news. we just heard the house intelligence committee, your committee, the chairman, adam schiff, among others, seeking specific information from various attorneys for the president, his family, his business, in connection with michael cohen's claims, that clearly were false, that he said they helped him edit that false testimony before congress about the moscow trump tower project. first of all, do you support this inquiry by your committee? >> no, look, wolf, if you think go you've got to beat this dead horse any longer, you've got to dig this out of the grave to beat it. mr. mueller completed his report. there's been so many investigations. this seems to be much, much more of the same. and here's my concern with this. and i think this is something that you and others would appreciate. this isn't the purview of the house intelligence committee. our committee is there to look at national secu

this committee and all committees in congress have oversight responsibilities.ut it is also the sacred responsibility of the chairman to use it properly and not head long rush into subpoenas when you don't get what you want. the first one was the acting attorney general. we subpoenaed then we backed off. then everything else has become a race to get a headline. the accommodation process not happening. the accommodation process never here. so don't be fooled. you may have an opinion that says everything is wrong today with the mueller report and the president is guilty but don't undercut congressional oversight because you can't wait. that's the problem we have right now. so the question is, are we tearing at the fabric of congressional oversight? it was really interesting to hear some of that last week. when you have a committee that has issued subpoenas that asks the attorney general to do something illegal, when you have contempt issues with no process and no i'm going through, i just submit to you this. whatever your opinion on the mueller report, great, glad

the committee? no. apparently not. in fact, the chairman hasn't even reviewed the unredacted version that's been provided. i listened with interest as the chairman mentioned in his remarks how important it is that we all read the report. but he hasn't gone down to read the report. this is a charade. and i have never seen anything like it. 225 days progressed from subpoena of eric holder to a contempt vote. this circus, 19 days. it's clear that this is just a game for the majority. and now that they have a bad hand, they're bluffing. give us the unredacted report. bill barr is biased. don't worry about what the law says. the only bias is the blind hatred of this president and disdain for the rules of this house. and the rule of law that is in this constitution. and the views and actions of the majority, the drive for impeachment trumps all, and yes, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's a duck. so they're trying to itch people the duck. -- impeach the duck. it trums the truth. it trumps

the judiciary committee is like the supreme court committee. don't think it is all that surprising. slots areittee basically chosen by the democratic leadership. they want to make democratic members happy and kamala harris wanted to be on that committee. host: two women on the republican side on that committee. joni ernst and senator blackburn. what do you expect to hear from them? guest: that is a wild card here. if you remember the last big judiciary hearing was the kavanaugh hearing and republicans were not happy that they had no women there to question kavanaugh's accuser. acknowledged at the time they wished they had women on that committee. mitch mcconnell said he tried to recruit women for that committee before and failed. he managed to recruit marsha blackburn and joni ernst to go on that committee. i think you will hear similar questions from them as from other republicans. they have not been saying we need to hear from mueller. they have not been stepping out on this issue. you don't get on this committee unless you are going to vote

the committee. is my time up? >> the witness may answer the question. >> i would agree with the professor and add that of course in cases of large volume, this committee and criminal investigations as well often receive documents on a rolling basis in which you begin your production and you explain that there are a lot and it will take us a few weeks or months and that sort of accommodation would be very reasonable. it has not been put on the table by the department. >> the gentleman from arizona. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you to all the witnesses for being here today. executive privilege is a critical protection for the executive branch and our separation of power scheme. and if presidential advisers, the effect will be that advisers are less willing to give advice as professor shaw has approval testified today. however, invoking privilege, preventing access to documents should be down sparingly. nonetheless, congressional overreach and using the legal process for political purposes is also

that would seem it line up what that committee's been looking into and what committee's jurisdiction is. and i think the third and probably most prominent and one of the reasons i would be willing to bet over the course the next couple hours, the need to have michael flynn come up and publicly testify, is the idea of obstruction. this has been a huge piece of the house judiciary investigation up to this point, the idea anybody from the trump orbit was reaching out to michael flynn while he was cooperating with the mueller investigation. the idea there might be or is a voicemail that reflects that, that is something members of congress democrats who are investigating looking into this stuff are going to want to get in some way, shape or form. whether voluntarily or subpoenaed. those are the types of things they would be looking to get as they continue to move forward in their investigation. you need to look at this in three tracks and understand the democrats, it should be noted are hitting a brick wall when it comes to obtaining the mueller report on all sorts of investigation will b

of the science committee. we did very vigorous oversight on the patriot act, as the chairman, the gentleman from new york, recognized. i did vigorous oversight of our involvement with the russians in terms of the space station, as those who were around here at that time recognized, but in ten years as a committee chairman, i never issued a subpoena. and the reason i never issued a subpoena is that i was able to get the information the committee needed to do its oversight simply by negotiating, by writing letters to the agency heads, some of which i admit used some very tart language, but at least i was able to get the information that the committee needed to make the agencies operate better without issuing a subpoena. what we're seeing here is subpoena first and then figure out, you know, what we can do to make people embarrassed because they cannot comply with all parts of the subpoena. mr. barr can't do that under rule 6e. so the chairman has put the attorney general between a rock and a hard place. comply w

lindsey graham is the chairman of the senate judiciary committee, the committee with jurisdiction over our criminal justice system and our civil justice system. that's the committee that writes federal laws about, among other things, how federal subpoenas are enforced, and the chairman of that committee, who is a lawyer, is publicly advising a witness subpoenaed by the united states senate to ignore that subpoena. publicly advising him to commit a crime. psychiatrists studying lindsey graham's attempts to subvert and pervert congressional subpoena power need to begin with 20th century lindsey graham. >> the day richard nixon failed to answer that subpoena is the day that he was subject to impeachment because he took the power from congress over the impeachment process away from congress and he became the judge and jury. >> before donald trump jr. reached an agreement about testifying to the senate intelligence committee late today, last night lindsey graham publicly coached donald trump jr. again, telling "the washington post," "you just show up and plead the fifth and it's over with."

joining us now a member of the judiciary committee, mucarsel-powell. your critics are already saying the republicans insisting this is simply a democratic political stunt. your reaction? >> well, it's far from a stunt. it's far from a game. i really think is one of the most serious constitutional moments we have faced and looking specifically at the foundations of our democracy our founders were smart enough, wolf, to have three branches of government that are supposed to be co-equal. so that there would be oversight of each branch on the other. if he is going to now ignore every request for a witness to come and testify, if he is going to exert blanket executive privilege which legally he can't do. he already waived executive privilege around the mueller report. now he's trying to assert it over everything and hide what is in the mueller report. we are at a deeply disturbing moment. the difference between a dictator shship and democracy i democracy has checks and balances. if you take away the entire authority and say one branch is not going to respec

services committee. the deadline on that subpoena for them to hand over that over, it was -- it's monday, may 6th. but it came about through an unusual process and it's sort of since been shifted. david enrich, the financial editor of "the new york times" wrote about this this week. he says "lawyers for deutsche bank have spent months cooperating with investigators from two democratic controlled congressional committees. once the requests from the committees reached a certain point, the banks asked and the committees issued what one lawmaker calls a friendly subpoena." that was a couple weeks ago in mid-april. so the banks were already preparing to hand over lots of information. everything the committees were asking for. couple of weeks ago the banks asked, please may we have a subpoena? it's not that we're not cooperating, but they wanted a subpoena basically to cover their butts so legally it would be clear they had no choice but to hand over these document. that's why they got this friendly subpoena w

we also worked with cha and committee staff to develop the committee repository bringing together committee documents and schedules into a single location. working with the ethics committee, we developed the online, disclosure systems and are currently working on finalizing jack act updates. we're currently working with the house office of legislative counsel on comparative print project and our website redesign is almost complete. we anticipate integrating a new site search capability at the end of june this year. going forward, i see a move toward accessing data via application programmer interface, apis. instead of using bulk data files. and the clerk positioned itself to move in that direction by developing our website using apis. we anticipate beginning to make those apis available bothinternally and to the public by the end of this year. we have already shared the committee repository api to assist the library of congress in their display of combined house and senate committee schedules on congress.gov. there is also a need to look at the whole legislative drafting process from deskto

you have certain members of the judiciary committee and other committees meeting.mon on capitol hill to have multiple committees meeting at once. because this is a prominent hearing, that's why they have people spread over. that will hold this open for a couple minutes. the question is when does the full house of representatives consider this? this is up to the leadership. if you go back to 2008 when hey held harriet meyers in contempt of congress and josh bolton, john conyers waited a few weeks until they popped that on the house floor. the reason you do that, sometimes you want to continue to apply pressure. we have no indication at this point when they will do that. neil, there's something else that is very important about the nature of the way this will be considered before the full house. when the committee finishes, they will have voted to hold barr in contempt in an effor mu. it's up to the house leadership to determine if this is a civil contempt citation, in order do they sue for it, that's what we've had before with eric holder and certainly with lois lea

the senate finance committee and the appropriations committee. and they think that the budget is interfering with their turf, and there's really not a whole lot of enthusiasm on either of those committees, certainly from the staff, but also from the leadership, to be constructive player in the budget process at the level you need it if you're going to get things done effectively. the third issue is it doesn't address the budget. the budget is 27% of spending of the federal government. 73% of the federal government spending isn't even addressed in the budget. it is incredible that we would have such an appropriation-centric budget when the appropriations process is so limited in size and basically locked into its size. you're not going to be able to change defense by more than a percentage point or two. not going to be able to change the discussion in spending. so we need to address that. and we need to figure out a way to bring into play the rest of the items in the budget and have a comprehensive system. my view is that there are a lot of ways y

and judiciary committee. specific documents that we could specify. and 6 e materials is a part of it. operable under the law. even the attorney general and doj walking into court, with us. saying what can be released. or not opposing when we go into court to get a court order. the false narrative that the whole premise is on trying to get grand jury materials that i'm sure the redundancy of this has strained the imagination of the american people. what is 6 e? it only means that documents used in a grand jury like you would be down in your own back yard you had a grand jury for a criminal case, those materials are typically not seen. in this instance, because of need for the thorough investigation that we have for the american people. we would use the courts. i want to move away from that. that is not the anchor of what we have requested. and then you cannot ignore the series of meetings and engagements that the staff has had. but what occurred in the last 24 hours, was a saturday night massacre of rejection.

find the committee. you know i can continue on and on and on about the issues that we have here and the impeachment agenda and whatever you want to have and saying he's blackmailing the committee, terrified to come before the committee. yesterday he proved he's not terrified to sit before anybody, especially the senate which they extended the question time on. he answered the question, whether you like the question or not -- as my chairman told me yesterday, it's not a matter we agree or disagree. we have the motion. you can agree with the attorney general or disagree with the attorney general but not hearing from him is a travesty for this committee today. but i would remiss if i didn't mention the largest tragedy of this day. it actually was from yesterday. the chairman just stated a few moments ago that we can't let moments pass. i agree completely. because what happened yesterday on this dais was a traj city. wh travesty. when you do not recognize members for valid motions. you call things dilatory.

, the house intelligence committee, the senate intelligence committee, anybody anything?yeah. >> that's stonewalling the american people. it's fit only for a monarch. and it's lawless. but what are they afraid of? >> the president also does not want his tax returns to be turned over and you heard that obviously they're not -- they said they're not going to do it. "the new york times" yesterday revealed that they got ten years of his tax returns and that he lost a billion dollars or more within a decade. what do you -- is that even more evidence or reason that you want to see all this information from the president of the united states? what did you think of that report? >> well, it seems to be very well sourced and it's very revealing. but of course what it shows is that the president is a total liar and a two bit con man. but those of us who knew him in new york knew that for many years and people couldn't deal with him or believe what he said and knew banks wouldn't lend him money, except for deutsche bank. it doubles down on the reasoning for asking for his tax returns

we approved it in a motion before the committee. it has been done many other times, most recently with dr. blaze ford. why don't you want to be questioned as the staff attorney? that's the most important question for the media. >> are you concerned that this is now just going to get bogged down in court, and are you okay that it may now take longer for you to get all these answers that you're demanding? >> let's just walk through the process of how contempt proceedings work. attorney general bill barr has violated a lawful subpoena to provide us the full mueller report as underlying evidence. if we go to contempt, the house judiciary committee will vote, if we vote it out, it goes to the house floor. once the house floor votes it out, then it triggers a number of things. the house counsel can go litigate in court, but we also have inherent contempt powers that courts have upheld for us to take immediate action irrespective of the courts. we can start imposing fines on that person. in the past they had a house jail. i don't think we'

>> it was a proper activity for the judiciary committee to take. bar has been contemptuous of us last week of not showing us. he was contemptuous today by not giving the documents. the attempt we brought will end up in the courts and it will take some time before anything happens and it could be through the election. i would rather have done it. i want to take strong action to show this attorney general, this administration, this president will not sully the constitution and the work of our founding fathers and what this country, this building where i'm in now was built upon. that's what they're doing. >> your chairman says he may pursue a civil lawsuit but is that going to have any effect on the attorney general? >> none what so ever. he is roy cohn for donald trump who is standing in the shoes of joe mccarthy. >> the justice department sed you terminated negotiations for the unredacted mueller report by holding this contempt vote today. have you undermined your own effort to get that information? >> well we'll have to see what happens. that's pos

i've been watching the committee all day long. now, i'm 70 years old, and i never have seen anything like this before going on in our government. our government is broken. the bottom line is this. donald trump was elected as our president. and we have people in this country in both parties who can simply not deal with this. when this man came into office, he was handed a royal mess from previous presidents, in both parties, on the economy, trade, immigration, the list is endless. and this man has almost single handedly tried to tackle this. now we have a situation here where all of the congress wants to be involved in the mueller report. we have major issues affecting this country right now. one of which is our southern border. and while these congress people are bantering back and forth like children in kindergarten, they should be addressing that issue. because if we don't get that under control, we're not even going to have a country to worry about. and i feel very badly for mr. barr, the way mazie hirono inappropriately questi

committee, the white house asserting executive privilege, the judiciary committee finding barr in contempt of congress. now the house is going to find him in contempt of congress, and don mcgahn is defying the subpoena to come testify what he told mueller. he is potentially going to be held in contempt of congress, too. all of these things are happening all at once. they're all indicative of the same big confrontation. the house intelligence subpoena today is part of that, too. the house intelligence committee actually does have the law on its side in this new effort they launched today to try to get mueller's unredacted findings in his evidence. what they've got on their side is a post-9/11 law that actually affords them access to justice department matters that involve foreign intelligence or grave hostile acts of a foreign power. and so, under that law, that post-9/11 law, they are, under statute, supposed to get access to what they asked the justice department for. and so, they've asked nicely for it several times, no response from william barr and the justice department. so, now it's