House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she agrees with Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler's claim yesterday that the U.S. is in a "constitutional crisis" over the White House's stonewalling of congressional oversight, telling reporters: "The administration has decided they are not going to honor their oath of office."
The backdrop: The House Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday to hold Attorney General Bill Barr in contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena demanding the release of the full Mueller report and its underlying materials. In response, the White House said it would assert executive privilege over the subpoenaed documents.
The big picture: On the question of impeachment, Pelosi demurred, as she has in the past: "Impeach or nothing? No, it's not that. It’s a path that is producing results and gathering information, and some of that information is that this administration wants to have a constitutional crisis because they do not respect the oath of office."
- She added: "It's appalling this administration would not even pretend to want to protect our elections and in fact be an obstacle to our finding out about how it happened... the president is almost self-impeaching because he is every day demonstrating more obstruction of justice."
What's next: Pelosi said she will bring Barr's contempt of Congress resolution to the floor when they are ready. "We'll just see because there might be some other contempt of Congress issues that we want to deal with at the same time," she said.
