Barr contempt citation on hold

House judiciary committee chair Jerry Nadler announced that an agreement had been reached for the DoJ to start turning over “key” materials from the special counsel Robert Mueller (who stepped down as an employee of the DoJ last month) Trump-Russia investigation. This put his plans (whether real or not) to hold attorney general Bill Barr (top dog at the DoJ) in criminal contempt of Congress “in abeyance for now”.

[...]

Chairman Nadler made the following statement: “I am pleased to announce that the Department of Justice has agreed to begin complying with our committee’s subpoena by opening Robert Mueller’s most important files to us, providing us with key evidence that the Special Counsel used to assess whether the President and others obstructed justice or were engaged in other misconduct. The Department will share the first of these documents with us later today. All members of the Judiciary Committee—Democrats and Republicans alike—will be able to view them. These documents will allow us to perform our constitutional duties and decide how to respond to the allegations laid out against the President by the Special Counsel.

“Given our conversations with the Department, I will hold the criminal contempt process in abeyance for now. We have agreed to allow the Department time to demonstrate compliance with this agreement. If the Department proceeds in good faith and we are able to obtain everything that we need, then there will be no need to take further steps. If important information is held back, then we will have no choice but to enforce our subpoena in court and consider other remedies. It is critical that Congress is able to obtain the information we need to do our jobs, ensuring no one is above the law and bringing the American public the transparency they deserve.”

[...]

On April 19, the House judiciary committee issued a subpoena for the unredacted Mueller report and key underlying evidence. The Department of Justice refused to comply with the May 1 deadline for production of those materials.

Although the Committee made repeated attempts to negotiate for the materials responsive to the subpoena, the Department cut off negotiations on the evening of May 7.

On May 8, the committee voted to recommend that the House hold Attorney General [William] Barr in contempt of Congress.

[...]

That coincides with an important hearing where former White House counsel under Richard Nixon, John Dean, and other former US attorneys of more recent vintage, will testify to explain how prosecutors go through the process [of] investigating and taking action over obstruction of justice and abuse of power.

  The Guardian

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.