IV 

116TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION H. RES. 1032 

Instructing the Committee on the Judiciary to further its inquiry into the 

misconduct of William P. Barr, Attorney General of the United States. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

JUNE 30, 2020 

Mr. COHEN (for himself, Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois, Mr. HUFFMAN, Mr. 

TAKANO, Mr. COOPER, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Mr. PASCRELL, Mr. CARSON

of Indiana, Mrs. BEATTY, Ms. OMAR, Mr. GRIJALVA, Mr. KENNEDY, Ms. 

WATERS, Mr. GREEN of Texas, Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN, Mr. CICILLINE, 

Mr. RUSH, Mr. YARMUTH, Mr. NEAL, Mr. MEEKS, Mr. GARCI ́A of Illinois, Mr. CLAY, Mr. CONNOLLY, Mr. BEYER, Mr. EVANS, Mr. SWALWELL

of California, Mr. QUIGLEY, Ms. PRESSLEY, Ms. VELA ́ZQUEZ, Mr. PERLMUTTER, Mr. BLUMENAUER, Mr. ESPAILLAT, Mrs. LAWRENCE, Mr. 

LOWENTHAL, Mr. TED LIEU of California, and Ms. TLAIB) submitted the 

following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Rules 

RESOLUTION 

Instructing the Committee on the Judiciary to further its 

inquiry into the misconduct of William P. Barr, Attorney 

General of the United States. 

Whereas William P. Barr, Attorney General of the United 

States, has taken deliberate actions that violate the 

rights of the American people, assault the principle of impartial administration of justice, and undermine the constitutional structure of separation of powers across three 

co-equal branches of Government; 


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•HRES 1032 IH 

Whereas Attorney General Barr abused the power of his office to initiate pretextual antitrust investigations into 

‘‘unpopular’’ American corporations in the cannabis, 

automobile, and technology industries; 

Whereas such investigations misused the resources Congress 

appropriated for the Department of Justice to harass and 

intimidate companies based on President Donald J. 

Trump’s whims and without a proper legal predicate for 

such investigations; 

Whereas Attorney General Barr impaired the proper function 

of the Congress of the United States, a coequal branch 

of Government, by— 

(1) withholding subpoenaed information, including 

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s full report, and refusing 

to appear before the House of Representatives Committee 

on the Judiciary on March 2, 2019; 

(2) failing to comply with a subpoena issued by the 

House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and 

Reform on April 2, 2019, to produce documents; 

(3) ordering a Department of Justice employee, 

John Gore, not to comply with a Committee on Oversight 

and Reform subpoena requiring him to appear for deposition testimony before the Committee on April 11, 2019; 

and 

(4) prohibiting the referral of the Intelligence Community whistleblower complaint to the House Permanent 

Select Committee on Intelligence as directed by law; 

Whereas Attorney General Barr eroded confidence in the judicial system by questioning the legitimacy of Department of Justice investigations and discrediting the Department’s finding, by— 


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•HRES 1032 IH 

(1) casting aspersions on the lawful inquiry into foreign interference in the 2016 Presidential elections calling it a ‘‘travesty’’ and repeatedly asserting the United 

States ‘‘spied’’ on then candidate Donald Trump’s campaign; 

(2) misleading the Congress and the public by offering a ‘‘summary letter’’ of the Special Counsel Robert 

Mueller’s report that, according to Mueller, did ‘‘not fully 

capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office’s work and conclusion’’ and created ‘‘Public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for 

which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to 

assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigation,’’; and 

(3) soliciting foreign assistance for information that 

would raise doubts about the origins and integrity of the 

investigation into the foreign inference in the 2016 election; 

Whereas Attorney General Barr has abused his office to further the personal political goals of President Trump and 

target former Vice President Joe Biden, a candidate for 

President in 2020, by announcing that the Department 

of Justice is accepting and reviewing information from 

the President’s personal attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, who 

has peddled disproven conspiracy theories about Vice 

President Joe Biden’s and his son, Hunter Biden’s, engagement in Ukraine; 

Whereas President Trump withheld congressionally approved 

military assistance to Ukraine to pressure that nation to 

announce an investigation into the same conspiracy theories promoted by Rudolph Giuliani in an effort to smear 


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•HRES 1032 IH 

Vice President Joe Biden and further President Trump’s 

election prospects, an offense that ultimately led to the 

President Trump’s impeachment; 

Whereas Attorney General Barr has obstructed justice, undermined the American people’s confidence in the criminal justice system, abused the authority of his office, and 

violated the principle of equal justice under law, by repeatedly providing favor to the friends and political allies 

of President Trump, including— 

(1) interfering with the prosecution of President 

Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, who pleaded 

guilty to campaign finance violations in connection with 

Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign for President; 

(2) endeavoring to shield President Trump from 

criminal charges for campaign finance violations by having the Department of Justice write a memorandum designed to undercut the legal rationale for Michael 

Cohen’s prosecution and subsequent prosecutions in the 

case, knowing President Trump, identified as ‘‘Individual 

1’’ in the Government’s complaint, directed Cohen’s actions and therefore may also be criminally liable; 

(3) corruptly pressuring acting United States Attorney Timothy Shea, and in so doing career prosecutors in 

the United States Attorney’s Office, to reduce the recommended sentence for President Trump’s friend and 

campaign advisor Roger Stone and ‘‘cut Stone a break’’ 

because of ‘‘political concerns’’; 

(4) creating a culture of intimidation within the Department of Justice designed to provide preferential 

treatment to the friends and associates of President 

Trump such that a career prosecutor testified to the 

House of Representatives that if Roger Stone was not 


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•HRES 1032 IH 

provided special treatment, the prosecutor would ‘‘loose 

[his] job’’; 

(5) overruling the career prosecutors in the Department of Justice and instructing United States Attorney 

Timothy Shea to move to dismiss the false-statements 

charges against Michael Flynn, former Donald Trump 

campaign advisor and White House National Security 

Advisor, even after Flynn had pleaded guilty, based on a 

distortion of the record; 

(6) decontextualizing the words of acting Assistant 

Attorney General for National Security, Mary B. 

McCord, in an effort to mislead the Court and the American public about the legality and process of the investigation into Flynn’s contacts with Russian Ambassador 

Sergey Kislyak; and 

(7) removing without cause acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey 

Berman, who was overseeing several investigations into 

the friends and associates of President Trump, including— 

(A) the President’s 2016 inaugural committee; 

(B) President Trump’s former attorney Michael 

Cohen; 

(C) President Trump’s attorney Rudolph 

Giuliani; 

(D) Giuliani’s associates Lev Parnas and Igor 

Fruman; and 

(E) Deutsche Bank, a financial institution with 

an extensive business relationship with President 

Trump, the Trump Organization, and entities controlled by the family of his son-in-law, Jared 

Kushner; 


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Whereas such a pattern interference in the specific cases that 

may affect the President or his family, friends, or interests, raises a logical inference that Attorney General 

Barr is acting corruptly to protect President Trump from 

any criminal culpability and effectively placing the President beyond the reach of the law; 

Whereas the New York City Bar, raised ‘‘enormous concerns’’ about United States Attorney Geoff Berman’s firing, stating that Attorney General Barr’s actions to 

‘‘summarily remove a U.S. Attorney in a context in which 

associates of the President (and possibly the President 

himself) are reported to be under active investigation by 

that office suggests political interference and undermines 

confidence in the integrity of our justice system’’; 

Whereas the New York City Bar Association called on Congress to ‘‘examine closely Mr. Barr’s motives for taking 

this precipitous action and whether or not he communicated with the president before, during or after doing 

so’’; 

Whereas Attorney General Barr violated rights of American 

People enshrined in the First Amendment of the United 

States Constitution by— 

(1) ordering the dispersal of a peaceful racial justice 

protest on Lafayette Square and H Street, Northwest in 

Washington, District of Columbia, with chemical agents, 

flash bangs, and batons so that President Trump could 

walk across Lafayette Square to the site of the recently 

cleared protest for a photo opportunity; and 

(2) deploying law enforcement officers across the 

country and in particular, the unidentified officers in 

Washington, DC, to control activity protected by the 

First Amendment; 


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Whereas Attorney General Barr, echoing a common assertion 

by President Trump that elections in the United States 

are ‘‘rigged’’, is further undermining the people’s confidence in the democratic system by making unsubstantiated claims that elections conducted by mail, which will 

be necessary in November 2020 because of the international coronavirus pandemic, are insecure and rife with 

fraud, and insinuating the results may not be legitimate; 

and 

Whereas, if the actions and events described in this resolution 

are accurate, Attorney General Barr would have repeatedly engaged in misconduct that would constitute a gross 

violation of his oath of office and betrayal of trust of the 

American people: Now, therefore, be it 

1 Resolved, That— 

2 (1) the Committee on the Judiciary shall in3 quire into the foregoing instances to determine 

4 whether the House of Representatives should im5 peach William P. Barr, Attorney General of the 

6 United States; 

7 (2) the Committee on the Judiciary or any sub8 committee or task force designated by the Com9 mittee may, in connection with the inquiry under 

10 this resolution, take affidavits and depositions by a 

11 member, counsel, or consultant of the Committee, 

12 pursuant to notice or subpoena; 

13 (3) in any impeachment inquiry designated as 

14 such by the Chairman of the Committee on the JuVerDate Sep 11 2014 02:34 Jul 01, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\HR1032.IH HR1032

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•HRES 1032 IH 

1 diciary, the Committee on the Judiciary shall apply 

2 the rules described in section 4 of H. Res. 660, as 

3 engrossed in the House of Representatives on Octo4 ber 31, 2019, to the subject of such an impeachment 

5 inquiry; and 

6 (4) there shall be paid out of the applicable ac7 counts of the House of Representatives such sums 

8 as may be necessary to assist the Committee on the 

9 Judiciary in conducting the inquiry under this reso10 lution, any of which may be used for the procure11 ment of staff or consultant services. 

Æ 


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