We told you William Barr is panicking
A few days ago, Attorney General William Barr was caught planting stories in newspapers, in the hope of changing the narrative about his handling of the Mueller report ahead of his public testimony before Congress this upcoming week. At the time, Palmer Report pointed to this as evidence that Barr was panicking about how his testimony would go. Now Barr is making clear just how panicked he is.
William Barr is scheduled to testify before the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, and the Democratic-controlled House Judiciary Committee on Thursday. Now according to ABC News and other major news outlets, Barr is threatening to skip out on the House Judiciary Committee, citing the committee’s intention to allow professional legal counsel to question him for thirty minutes straight, in addition to the usual five minutes traditionally afforded to each committee member. Oops.
At least now we know part of why William Barr has been panicking. The legal counsel can expertly expose the false claims that Barr made in his initial “summary” of the Mueller report, and also dismantle the nonsense rationales that Barr has since provided in the name of justifying it. Also, the legal counsel will have a far better shot at tripping up Barr and getting him to either accidentally admit the truth, or commit provable perjury, either of which would severely weaken his position.
In response, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler is saying that if William Barr fails to show up, he’ll be subpoenaed, and that “we will have to use whatever means we can to enforce the subpoena.” That means Barr will be held in contempt. Interestingly, earlier this week, it was revealed that Nadler has been privately looking at how to jail people who refuse to testify. Nadler might get to use that strategy sooner than expected.
