Pelosi accuses Barr of committing a crime by lying to Congress

poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201905/2195/1155968404_6032252810001_6032252733001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true congress Pelosi accuses Barr of committing a crime by lying to Congress 'Nobody is above the law. Not the president of the United States, and not the attorney general.'

Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday accused Attorney General William Barr of committing a crime by lying to Congress, blasting him in a closed-door meeting and later at a news conference.

“We saw [Barr] commit a crime when he answered your question,” Pelosi told Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.) during a private caucus meeting Thursday morning, according to two sources present for the gathering.

“He lied to Congress. He lied to Congress,” Pelosi said soon after at a news conference. “And if anybody else did that, it would be considered a crime. Nobody is above the law. Not the president of the United States, and not the attorney general.”

The allegation comes as Democrats have intensified their criticisms of the attorney general over his handling of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, his refusal to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, and the Justice Department’s unwillingness to comply with a subpoena for the full unredacted report.

Pelosi’s comments were an apparent reference to Barr’s response to Crist last month during a House Appropriations Committee hearing, when the attorney general said he was not aware of any concerns that Mueller’s investigators might have expressed about his four-page summary of Mueller’s findings.

Barr’s response appeared to contradict the revelation earlier this week that Mueller himself wrote to the attorney general, saying he was worried that Barr’s summary “threatens to undermine ... public confidence” in the Russia probe. Mueller also said Barr’s memo “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the investigation.

Barr defended himself Wednesday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, saying he made a distinction between comments from members of Mueller’s team and Mueller himself.

The Justice Department also quickly hit back at Pelosi.

“Speaker Pelosi’s baseless attack on the attorney general is reckless, irresponsible and false,” said Kerri Kupec, a DOJ spokeswoman.

Pelosi also told her colleagues at the caucus meeting that she couldn’t sleep Wednesday night after watching Barr’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, during which he challenged Mueller’s legal theories and further endeared himself to President Donald Trump and his GOP allies.

Crist later told POLITICO he agrees with Pelosi that Barr committed a crime.

Asked what the result should be, Crist said, “We ought to have somebody who is in a law enforcement space charge him.”

When a reporter asked Pelosi if Barr should go to jail, she said, “There’s a process involved here, and as I said, I'll say it again, the committee will act upon how we will proceed.”

Crist said he was also open to holding Barr in contempt of Congress or beginning impeachment proceedings against him, echoing comments from other Democrats who have ratcheted up their rhetoric against Barr and other Trump administration officials in recent days.

“I don’t think we should rule out anything. We’ve got the real essence of our form of government in jeopardy right now,” said Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), who supports impeaching Trump.

But even as more Democrats demand impeaching the president, Pelosi is still resisting. During the closed-door meeting, Pelosi said impeachment is “too good for” Trump.

Asked at the news conference if it was time to consider impeachment in light of the administration’s broad rejection of Democratic oversight requests, Pelosi said no, even as she added that “a blanket statement that he’s not going to honor any subpoenas is obstruction of justice.”

The speaker’s remarks underscored Democrats’ deep frustrations with the White House’s refusal to comply with their oversight demands and subpoenas as part of their investigations of the president and his administration.

Barr refused to show up for a scheduled House Judiciary Committee testimony on Thursday amid a standoff with Democrats over the ground rules, and the Justice Department has said it would not comply with the panel’s subpoena for the full unredacted Mueller report and all of the underlying evidence and grand jury information.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders hit back at House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) on Thursday, saying he should resign if he can’t do his job — a reference to Democrats’ desire to allow staff attorneys to ask Barr questions at the hearing.

“I think what we’re seeing from Chairman Nadler is he’s incapable of holding power. If he and his committee aren’t capable of actually asking the attorney general questions themselves and need to staff that out it seems like a pretty pathetic moment for the chairman of that committee.”

Some Democrats have called on Barr to resign, and Nadler threatened on Thursday to hold Barr in contempt of Congress for not complying with the subpoena for the Mueller report. Those proceedings could begin as early as Monday.

“We must do all we can in the name of the American people to ensure that when the Trump administration ends, we have as robust a democracy to hand to our children as was handed to us,” Nadler said.

Kyle Cheney and Laura Barròn-Lopez contributed to this report.