Trump Suggests Mueller May Testify; Pelosi Declares ‘Constitutional Crisis’ – The New York Times

The committee’s chairman, Representative Adam B. Schiff, issued a subpoena on Thursday for Mr. Barr to hand over the full Mueller report and evidence, as well as all counterintelligence and foreign intelligence generated by the special counsel’s investigations. He gave the Justice Department until May 15 to comply. If Mr. Barr ignores that deadline, the Intelligence Committee would probably hold its own contempt proceedings and send another recommendation to the House floor.

At his news conference on Thursday, Mr. Trump took shots at both Mr. Schiff and Mr. Nadler.

He said Mr. Schiff was “conning this whole country” when he got in front of a microphone. Of Mr. Nadler, he said he used to “beat him all the time” — a reference to their decades-old clash over a railroad yard that Mr. Trump, then a real estate developer, bought in Mr. Nadler’s district on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. (In fact, while Mr. Trump was able to build on the property, Mr. Nadler was able to block the development that he initially envisioned.)

“I come to Washington and now I have to beat him again,” the president added.

Democrats say they are energized by the clash with the president. And they have other possible contempt citations in the wings, including for Donald F. McGahn II, the former White House counsel who is under subpoena by the Judiciary Committee, and witnesses in unrelated Oversight and Reform Committee investigations.

“In terms of timing, when we’re ready, we’ll come to the floor,” Ms. Pelosi said. “There might be some other contempt of Congress issues that we want to deal with at the same time.”

Kerri Kupec, a spokeswoman for Mr. Barr, declined to comment on Mr. Trump’s decision on Mr. Mueller’s testimony.

It came shortly before hundreds of current and former Justice Department officials gathered in the department’s great hall for a farewell ceremony for Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who supervised the Trump-Russia investigation after Jeff Sessions, Mr. Trump’s first attorney general, recused from overseeing that inquiry.

The ceremony, which included speeches by Mr. Barr and Mr. Sessions, largely avoided directly addressing why Mr. Rosenstein had such a turbulent tenure as deputy attorney general.

Still, Mr. Sessions noted to laughter that while he knew going into the Trump administration that the attorney general was often caught in the crossfire of the intersection of law and politics, the level of controversy during their time together running the Justice Department had exceeded his expectations: Things, he said, were “a bit not normal.”