McGovern Urges House of Reps to Pass Resolution Enforcing Subpoenas Issued to Barr & McGhan

Thursday, June 13, 2019

GoLocalWorcester Political Team

James McGovern PHOTO: Screenshot of video

Rules Committee Chairman James McGovern managed a debate on the House Floor for a resolution to combat President Donald Trump’s “disregard for Congress’s constitutional oversight authority, the rule of law, and our nation’s separation of powers.”

“Mr. Speaker, this is a dark time. This Congress is being tested - in this case, not by a foreign adversary, but by our own president. A president who is undertaking a relentless campaign of obstruction and stonewalling. We’ve never seen anything like this! Never before, Mr. Speaker, has a president of either party so flagrantly ignored Congress’s constitutional oversight authority and our nation’s separation of powers,” said McGovern.

Watch Video HERE

The resolution authorizes the Judiciary Committee chair to seek civil enforcement in federal court of the subpoenas issued to Attorney General Barr and former White House Counsel McGahn regarding the Mueller report.

It also reinforces key language in the House Rules to make clear that every chair of a committee or permanent select committee retains the ability to go to federal court to seek civil enforcement of their subpoenas when authorized by the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group.

Read McGovern’s Speech Below

You don’t have to take my word for it. President Trump himself has declared, ‘we are fighting all subpoenas,’ and ‘I don’t want people testifying.’ These words make Richard Nixon look like an Eagle Scout!...

His Attorney General, Bill Barr, is apparently more than willing to follow the president’s command. He has refused to release the full, unredacted Mueller report and any underlying evidence until a compromise was finally reached yesterday. That’s after the Judiciary Committee had already voted to hold him in contempt of Congress.

Apparently, the Attorney General went from being America’s lawyer to being the defense counsel for the president of the United States!

I hope the Justice Department acts in good faith on this new agreement. These are documents that Congress needs to see in response to Special Counsel Mueller’s findings. But if they do not, and if the Attorney General holds back key information, then all options need to be on the table, including enforcing these subpoenas. That’s in addition to the fact that some documents and testimony we deserve to obtain could very well fall outside the bounds of this agreement…

The president is trying to take this balance of power and centralize it in one place: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He’s acting as though the law applies to every American but himself. The president’s strategy here is clear. Tweet by tweet, quote by quote, he’s laid it bare for us all to see.

The question is whether this Congress will have the courage to take a stand against it. Whether we will confront this for what it is: an attack on the very notion of Congress as a coequal branch of government. I can’t speak for my friends on the other side of the aisle. But this Democratic Majority will not allow this president to turn a blind eye to the rule of law…

Because the challenge here is so great that if we don’t stand up to President Trump today, then we risk losing the power to stand up to any president in the future.

So I strongly urge my colleagues: let’s make clear that the law still matters - even in Donald Trump’s America.”