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DPCC Chair Cicilline: Democrats are Fighting for the American People

May 7, 2019

WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Cicilline, Chair of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee (DPCC), appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC to discuss Attorney General Barr's refusal to testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee. Congressman Cicilline highlighted that House Democrats are working hard on behalf of the American people to clean up corruption by conducting oversight, lower health care costs and raise wages by rebuilding America. Below are excerpts from the interview. Click here to watch the video

"Well, you described it accurately, Rachel. The Department of Justice officials are going to meet with the staff of the Judiciary Committee tomorrow in one final effort to reach some sort of resolution of this disagreement. But the contempt citation has been set for Wednesday. The committee, if an agreement is not reached tomorrow, will move forward to judge the Attorney General in contempt for his failure to comply with a lawfully issued subpoena."

"Look, I think there has been a hope throughout these negotiations that the Attorney General would reach some accommodation and furnish the committee with the unredacted report and work with us to seek authorization for the release of the grand jury testimony. As you mentioned earlier in the show, you know, in the Starr investigation, when the report was done, the entire report was delivered to Congress with 18 boxes of documents, including the grand jury proceedings because Ken Starr went to court to seek authorization to release them to Congress before Congress even asked for it. That's the practice we should be following. I think the chairman of the committee continues to hope that there will be a resolution in which case Mr. Barr will do it with Congress. The truth is courts look much more favorably on requests for the release of grand jury testimony when it comes from the government, from the Attorney General. So it would enhance our chances of success, but I think the committee is fully prepared and the absence of Mr. Barr doing this with us, to do it on our own. I think we can try to reach an accommodation to get the materials we need as quickly as we can to continue to do our oversight work."

"It's critical in my view that Mr. Mueller come before the committee and walk the American people through the findings in his report, answer questions about the judgments he made, the decisions he's made, the context of those things. And of course the President said -- at first he said that's up to Mr. Barr whether the Special Counsel will be permitted to testify. Mr. Barr has said he had no objection to it. He said that under oath. Now of course as this conversation continues, the President has now changed his mind and says he doesn't think Mr. Mueller should testify, which is sort of curious, because if in fact this report completely exonerated the President, not only would be the President want him to testify, you think the President might offer him a ride to the committee so he could be quickly heard and exonerate him. I think it's further evidence that the President is gravely concerned about the testimony of the Special Counsel and what he will tell the American people as he walks them through the findings in the Mueller report."