“This investigation went on for two years. It’s finally over. Many Americans were waiting to see how their elected officials would respond,” he will say, according to excerpts of his planned speech distributed to reporters.
McConnell’s remarks come as the House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler scheduled a vote to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for failing to provide a fully unredacted version of Mueller’s report for Wednesday. After contempt vote was scheduled, the Justice Department agreed to further talks to resolve the dispute.
If the committee does vote to hold Barr in contempt, the full House of Representatives would have to vote as well. The contempt resolution would also empower House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to take all appropriate action to enforce the subpoena.
Barr didn’t show up as scheduled Thursday to testify before the House judiciary panel, complaining about the format for questioning. That came as Barr and the Justice Department defied a committee subpoena to turn over the full, unredacted version of Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and the evidence behind it.
Republican McConnell will attempt to portray the House attempts to carry out oversight responsibilities as “unhinged partisanship.”
Meanwhile, on Monday more than 450 former federal prosecutors from both Republican and Democratic administrations signed a statement saying that Mueller’s findings would have resulted in obstruction charges “in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President.”