House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., on Wednesday rejected acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker’s offer to testify in mid-February, and he insisted that he appear sometime before President Trump’s State of the Union address.
“I cannot accept your proposal,” Nadler wrote to Whitaker in reply to a suggestion that the hearing be held Feb. 12 or Feb. 13. “We are willing to work with you to identify a mutually identifiable date for your testimony, but we will not allow that date to slip past January 29, 2019 — the day of the President’s scheduled address to Congress, when we know you will be in Washington.”
Nadler said that Whitaker must testify as soon as possible because Democrats are eager to hold oversight hearings on the Justice Department, and it’s been almost 15 months since former Attorney General Jeff Sessions testified before the committee. He said Whitaker’s testimony is therefore needed on “a number of pressing matters,” including the Trump administration’s claim that terrorists are sneaking across the southern U.S. border.
“We require an explanation for several apparently false statements by Administration officials about national security threats at the southern border,” he wrote. Nadler added one of these was made by Trump when he said the “vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country.”
Democrats want to address Trump’s “near-daily statements attacking the integrity of the Department of Justice, the FBI, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation,” Nadler wrote.
Democrats are looking to investigate the Justice Department’s decision to stop supporting Obamacare, and they want to ask about Trump administration efforts to weaken federal protections for civil rights.
Nadler said another justification is that Democrats are preparing bills that involve the Justice Department, including “bills that address voting rights, immigration, gun violence, the Violence Against Women Act, and foreign influence on the federal government.”
The new committee chairman also rejected Whitaker’s request that he testify at least two weeks after the partial government shutdown ends.
“In 1995, the Office of Legal Counsel twice determined that, in the event of a funding lapse, ‘the Department may continue activities such as providing testimony at hearings if the Department’s participation is necessary for the hearing to continue,'” Nadler wrote. “Your presence is certainly necessary to this hearing.”
On Tuesday, CNN reported that Nadler is threatening a subpoena if Whitaker does not voluntarily appear.
