With Barr a no-show, White House and Congress move further apart
Attorney General William Barr’s refusal to appear at a hearing convened by House Judiciary Committee Democrats on Thursday, after tense sparring with Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, escalated an extraordinary personal dispute between a key member of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet and opposition party officials.
The dispute is emblematic of the administration’s apparent policy of maximum resistance to Democratic-led congressional oversight of executive branch actions. The president, Mr. Barr, and other administration officials are engaging in constitutional hardball with another branch of government, the legislature.
President Trump “is trying to render Congress inert as a separate and coequal branch of government,” charged Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. “If we don’t stand up
What happened to coequal branches?Which branch is acting unconstitutionally?
