Washington D.C. -
Attorney General William Barr defied the House of Representatives today in refusing to show up for scheduled testimony in a continuing escalation by the executive branch refusing to allow Congress to exercise proper oversight, a core responsibility. Barr is widely thought to have been untruthful in his previous testimony to Congress, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi outright calling Barr’s testimony criminal after he perjured himself, in once instance saying he had no knowledge of Mueller’s specific concerns regarding Barr’s summary letter released March 5th when, in fact, he had received a letter outlining those specific concerns by Mueller, in addition to misleading the public on the substance and nature of the Mueller Report and acting as the president’s personal shield instead of the people’s attorney.
Democrats are grappling with the uncomfortable reality that impeachment works in Trump’s favor because the Senate is unlikely to remove him, and failing to convict the president and remove him from office just before the 2020 election would bolster Trump’s election status which could possibly give him enough of an advantage to tip the scales of the Electoral College once again. Trump is likely to increase his tactics to bait Democrats into impeachment proceedings, but Democrats may be forced to move forward for fear that setting new standards granting presidential impunity would be detrimental to our democracy and cede Congress’s most important role: oversight.
Barr shot back as Democratic Senators yesterday when confronted with his misrepresentations and outright lies by saying that “lying to Congress is perjury unless you’re protecting the president, or if you’re the attorney General, or in this case, both. Pick one.”
Ultimately, the United States seems to be headed for a constitutional crisis that must have both legal and political solutions that may include censure, impeachment, court battles, subpoenas, and lots of gaslighting. But the most powerful force in the country is marshaling its power which will culminate on November 3rd, 2020and the power of the people will lay waste to the petty mechanisms that will no doubt continue to fail us until that day, but that day is coming.