Title: Instructing the Committee on the Judiciary to further its inquiry into the misconduct of William P. Barr, Attorney General of the United States.
Policy area: Government Operations and Politics

Summary:
This resolution directs the Committee on the Judiciary to inquire into specified instances to determine whether the House of Representatives should impeach Attorney General William Barr.
The resolution authorizes the committee, or any subcommittee or task force designated by the committee, to take affidavits and depositions by a member, counsel, or consultant of the committee, pursuant to notice or subpoena.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1032 Introduced in House (IH)]

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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. Garcia of Illinois, Mr. Clay, Mr. 
    Connolly, Mr. Beyer, Mr. Evans, Mr. Swalwell of California, Mr. 
 Quigley, Ms. Pressley, Ms. Velazquez, 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;
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--

    (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 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 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--

    G    (A) the President's 2016 inaugural committee;

    G    (B) President Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen;

    G    (C) President Trump's attorney Rudolph Giuliani;

    G    (D) Giuliani's associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman; and

    G    (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;

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;

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
    Resolved, That--
            (1) the Committee on the Judiciary shall inquire into the 
        foregoing instances to determine whether the House of 
        Representatives should impeach William P. Barr, Attorney 
        General of the United States;
            (2) the Committee on the Judiciary or any subcommittee or 
        task force designated by the Committee may, in connection with 
        the inquiry under this resolution, take affidavits and 
        depositions by a member, counsel, or consultant of the 
        Committee, pursuant to notice or subpoena;
            (3) in any impeachment inquiry designated as such by the 
        Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, the Committee on 
        the Judiciary shall apply the rules described in section 4 of 
        H. Res. 660, as engrossed in the House of Representatives on 
        October 31, 2019, to the subject of such an impeachment 
        inquiry; and
            (4) there shall be paid out of the applicable accounts of 
        the House of Representatives such sums as may be necessary to 
        assist the Committee on the Judiciary in conducting the inquiry 
        under this resolution, any of which may be used for the 
        procurement of staff or consultant services.
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