During an interview that aired on Huntsville, AL radio’s WVNN on Thursday, Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, criticized Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) for the handling of his role as the House Judiciary Committee’s chairman.
Roby took exception with the committee’s effort to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress, calling it “political theater at its worst.”
“Let me start with what happened yesterday,” Roby said. “This was political theater at its worst. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have made moves to hold Attorney General Barr in contempt of Congress. And I want to be very clear: The efforts to hold the Attorney General in contempt are absurd. Yesterday’s hearing wasn’t about if the president did anything right or wrong. The hearing yesterday was about whether or not to hold the Attorney General in contempt for his failure to commit a felony.”
“The congressional committee has a right to conduct oversight of the executive branch,” she added. “But that is not what is happening right now. The Justice Department – and I would invite you to look at the line of questioning that I laid out in yesterday’s hearing – simply just laying out the timeline. The Justice Department extended an invitation for members of Congress and their staff to come read a less-redacted version of the Mueller report. And as of now, not a single member has taken them up on the offer.”
The Alabama Republican questioned the priorities of congressional Democrats, which as of late are investigating President Donald Trump and his administration. Roby also noted Nadler’s handling of the House Judiciary Committee in general and compared how Republicans in the minority are being treated compared to the Democrats in the minority under the committee’s previous chairman, former Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA).
“In my opinion, the real question is when will the Democrats start putting as much energy into legislating on behalf of the American people as they are into investigating President Trump?” she said. “We have real issues in this country that need addressed, and we have the opportunity to do so. And I’ll just say that I have been so disappointed in the way that the minority, the Republicans, on this committee are being treated by the majority. You know, I served on the Judiciary Committee in the last Congress when we were in control. And Chairman Goodlatte – I saw him exercise a tremendous amount of patience in allowing the minority’s voice to be heard. And that is not happening.”
“Chairman Nadler is shutting down every bill that we’ve marked up in Judiciary,” Roby added. “We’ve had many amendments to offer, and he called for the previous question, which is a procedural way to shut down the voice of the minority. And that’s exactly what we saw happening yesterday. Look, I mean it’s sad because it’s a deterioration of the institution itself by the way the chairman is choosing to act. I’m hopeful, again, that we can move forward and start addressing issues that will benefit the American people. But unfortunately for now, as you’ve seen, the Democrats insist on doing what they’re doing.”
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