House votes to hold Attorney General William Barr, Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt of Congress
House lawmakers accused Attorney General Barr and Commerce Secretary Ross of failing to provide Congress with information about the citizenship question for the census; reaction and analysis from the 'Special Report' All-Stars.
This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," July 17, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS, D-MD, CHAIRMAN, HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: The resolution before us today is about protecting our democracy. It is about protecting the integrity of this body. It's bigger than the census.
WILBUR ROSS, COMMERCE SECRETARY: I testified myself for almost seven hours before this very committee. This is just more political theater.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRET BAIER, HOST: The House just voted to hold the Secretary of Commerce and the Attorney General in criminal contempt. This after the Attorney General Barr at Secretary Ross wrote a letter, sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying "We regret that the Committee continues to recommend the House wield its criminal contempt authority even though we remain willing to work towards an appropriate accommodation. By taking this action, the House is both unnecessarily undermining interbranch comity and degrading the Constitutional separation of powers and its own institutional integrity. There is no information to hide. There are no institutional integrities to preserve. Accordingly, we urge the House postpone the contempt vote." They didn't. They moved forward.
Let's bring in our panel, Matthew Continetti, editor in chief of the "Washington Free Beacon," Jonathan Swan, national political reporter for "Axios," and Jason Riley, "Wall Street Journal" columnist and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. A lot of breaking news, guys. We will start there with the contempt. Matthew?
MATTHEW CONTINETTI, EDITOR IN CHIEF, "WASHINGTON FREE BEACON": I'm reminded of that moment earlier this year when Attorney General Barr met Nancy Pelosi at an event on Capitol Hill and asked her did, you bring your handcuffs? There's such a theatrical aspect to all of this. It's Pelosi's way of kind of throwing chum to her leftwing base and dragging them along in order to prevent them from just going whole hog for impeachment.
But I have to say, if you're a voter, an American voter, and paying attention to what's happening in the House today, you're going to say, why aren't they actually aggressing kitchen table issues?
BAIER: You need a whiteboard for all that was happening on Capitol Hill today as far as the votes. Jonathan?
JONATHAN SWAN, NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER, "AXIOS": On the criminal contempt question, a bold prediction that the Bill Barr Justice Department is not going to prosecute Bill Barr. Just a crazy prediction.
This is really all about impeachment. There are a number of Democrats now who believe that the only way to hold the president accountable is to open an impeachment inquiry and to do all the investigations channeled through that. And I think it's really striking today that this is such a small ball for a lot of these members. And actually what it does is it drives the frustration levels up even further among the progressive flank. Every time these increment actions happen, this is not satisfying them. Matthew was saying it's just throwing chum, and that's what it is, but the chum is not satisfying the people for whom the chum is meant to satisfy.
BAIER: So you were mentoring impeachment. The effort to bring up articles of impeachment today failed in the House. The president reacting to that on Twitter, as he often does, just moments ago. "The United States House of Representatives has just overwhelmingly voted to kill the resolution on impeachment, 332-95-1. This is perhaps the most ridiculous and time- consuming project I've ever had to work on. Impeachment of your president who has let the greatest economic boom in history of our country, the best jobs numbers, biggest tax reduction, rebuilt military, and much more is now over. They should never be allowed to happen to another president of the United States again."
Jason, he seems to be relishing this kind of fight that has developed.
JASON RILEY, "WALL STREET JOURNAL" COLUMNIST: Sure. He's certainly relishing it. It's dividing the opposition, which is always good for the incumbent. But Nancy Pelosi is in a dilemma here. She has moderates in her caucus and they don't want to be back home campaigning on this next year. She doesn't think it will help Democrats next year in the election, so she's trying to hold that off. But she has this progressive wing that wants to go there, and that's her dilemma right now.
But all of these subpoenas and contempt citations, this is ankle biting on the part of Democrats. They won't really pull the trigger here with impeachment, at least not yet. And this is what they're doing in the meantime. When Republicans controlled the House, they cited Eric Holder, and it had absolutely no impact on Eric Holder.
BAIER: Next week we're going to have, we think, the Mueller testimony on Wednesday. At least we think it's going to happen. Today you had the SDNY say that essentially the case on the campaign finance is over. We don't know if any indictments will come later, but there's no indictments now. So it's like, where's the beef?
SWAN: There's a really important point on that to underline, which is that these articles -- the articles of impeachment drafted by Representative Al Green, there is no mention.
BAIER: Nothing.
SWAN: It is purely based on the president's -- what he describes as the president's racism. And here's something that's really important. This is not some little fringe. This is not a small little progressive wing. Ninety-five Democrats voted to consider that, and that is just on those narrow grounds.
BAIER: Let alone everything else.
SWAN: That's not considering any obstruction or any of the rest of it.
BAIER: We've had a lot of breaking news. We've got more on all of this after a quick break. Keep it here.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-CALIF., HOUSE SPEAKER: It was a resolution of the House. It condemned the words of the president, not the president.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C., SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: Do I think the president is a racist? No. That's just the way he is. It's more narcissism than anything else.
SEN. CHRISTOPHER COONS, D-DEL.: There should be more Republicans who work with us across the aisle to condemn racist comments like these.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY, R-LA: I suggested to the president that he shouldn't even make a comment. Arguing with a fool just means there are two.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT: I'm not relishing the fight. I'm enjoying it because I have to get the word out to the American people. The key is, it's not a question of relishing. They're wrong. They're absolutely wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BAIER: The president before he left for this big rally that you will see her on FOX in North Carolina, talking about the squad there. These are these four Democratic progressive congresswomen who have really been the focus of the attention for the past three plus days. Back with the panel. Matthew, what about this fight and the big political picture?
CONTINETTI: Like a lot of Trump controversies, this one ends in a kind of draw where everyone is angry, and the president might be slightly ahead. And the reason I say that is a large part of the country, Bret, including most Republicans, no longer find the mainstream media or cultural and political elites credible. And so when they all unanimously condemn a Trump tweet for being racist, a lot of people say that's not true, last week you were saying Nancy Pelosi was racist. Beto O'Rourke said he was racist a few weeks ago. Everyone is racist now.
And so they are going to start looking at the actual issue involved, which is this conflict between Trump and the squad. And the more that the squad is out there as the mascot of the Democratic Party, the more the Democratic Party is in trouble.
BAIER: Jonathan?
SWAN: People should be clear about one thing, which is that when you hear anonymous sources and stuff saying that there's some grand strategy here, that this is part of a big chess game, that the president, those tweets were strategic. It's nonsense. He was watching television. He was responding to something on television. What has happened since is this scramble to rationalize them and put a political strategy together. What often happens is the Democrats help them in that effort, and I think that's partly what happened here.
But what we've seen over the last few days, again, is how just divided this House Democratic conference is. The sniping on background from some of these numbers, the moderate members, very few will go on the record because they're quite fearful of the huge Twitter followings with AOC, but the amount of backbiting is just incredible.
BAIER: Yes. Jason?
RILEY: I don't even know if it's even behind the scenes. It's in public. That's the bottom line. The Democrats are publicly fighting in a way that we rarely see. And Trump got in the way of that. And that's why I think this tweet brought them together, and therefore that's what made it a political misstep, regardless of whether you think it was racist or not.
BAIER: I have a feeling we're going to hear about this tonight at this rally. I just have a feeling.
(LAUGHTER)
SWAN: Just a chance.
BAIER: Maybe it's just me. Panel, thank you.
When we come back, a little boy with a big idea.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BAIER: Finally tonight, a young boy with a bright idea. Twelve-year-old Darius Brown loves bow ties, and he loves animals. Now both are together. He has his own business, Beaux and Paws, that dresses shelter pets up in bow ties that he make so the animals can look good while they're waiting to be adopted. Everything Darius makes is donated to shelters across the U.S. and overseas, and he's very successful so far. Those animals look good.
Thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. That's it for this “Special Report,” fair, balanced, and unafraid.
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