House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NJ) said Wednesday that the full House will move “rapidly” towards holding Attorney General Bill Barr in contempt, warning that the U.S. government has entered a “constitutional crisis.” Nadler made the remarks after his committee voted in favor of recommending Barr be held in contempt for refusing to produce the unredacted report of special counsel Robert Mueller and its underlying materials, which the committee had subpoenaed. “We’ve talked for a long time about approaching a constitutional crisis, we are now in it,” Nadler said, before referencing the famous Benjamin Frank quote about United States being a “republic…if you can keep it.” “Now is the time of testing whether we can keep a republic or whether this republic is destined to change into a different, more tyrannical form of government,” he said. Nadler did not know whether the full House would vote on the contempt resolution next week, but said it would be on the floor soon.
