House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., warned congressional Democrats against making any attempt to remove Attorney General William Barr from the Justice Department.
Barr appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, where he was grilled on his handling of special counsel Robert Mueller’s federal Russia investigation report. He was due to testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, but refused to be interviewed by staff lawyers for the panel as opposed to the lawmakers themselves, a format pushed by Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.
That’s led to musing among some House Democrats that Barr should be impeached. While that would take only a House majority vote, two-thirds of senators would have to vote to remove Barr, a near-impossibility in the current GOP-majority chamber.
“I think they’d be stupid. I don’t understand the reason why. Listen, when you sit back and look at what Nadler did yesterday. I think they were so pent up on trying to impeach the president that they’re not thinking through what they are doing,” McCarthy told the Washington Post during a live event. “Does Nadler not believe his own members are sharp enough? Does he believe those 18 attorneys are not sharp enough?”
Barr’s conflict with Congress coincides with a news story reporting that Mueller complained last month to Barr that his four-page memo about the special counsel’s report “did not fully capture the context” of his findings. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., ratcheted up criticism of Barr on Thursday, alleging that he lied to Congress and that would be a crime if committed by anybody other than the attorney general.
McCarthy, instead, praised Barr for doing “a tremendous job” as the country’s top law enforcement officer.
In a wide-ranging interview, McCarthy reiterated calls for House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., to step down, jokingly citing liberal HBO host Bill Maher’s recent description of Schiff as “a stalker” in his management of his panel’s probes into President Trump and the administration.
But while McCarthy said Thursday that the country needed to move on from the Russia inquiry, he also voiced his support of Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., for making criminal referrals to the Justice Department regarding possible political bias within the agency.
McCarthy on Thursday additionally indicated his caucus would try to force a vote addressing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel, similar to a measure passed by the Senate in February with 77 votes. At the same time, he told the audience he would not take any action reinstating Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, to his old committee assignments.
“Not this term, no,” McCarthy said.
King, a nine-term lawmaker, was stripped of his responsibilities in January amid the fallout over disputed comments he made to the New York Times about white supremacy, white nationalism, and Western civilization.
