Conway says Barr will decide whether he’ll testify this week
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Tuesday that it’s up to Attorney General William Barr to decide whether he will testify as scheduled this week before the House Judiciary Committee.
“We’ll leave that to him. He’s certainly testifying in the Senate, so it’s not like he’s afraid to answer questions under oath,” Conway said during an interview on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom.”
{mosads}Barr is scheduled to testify before the House committee Thursday, but earlier this week he warned Democrats that he may not appear if they don’t change the proposed format for the hearing.
In addition to five minutes of questioning for each member of the committee, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) has proposed a round that would allow for each side to question Barr for 30 minutes. That round of questioning would allow the committee counsels for both parties to question Barr.
Nadler is also said to have proposed a closed session for the committee and Barr to discuss redacted sections of special counsel Robert Mueller‘s report.
Barr has rejected those additional rounds of questioning.
Nadler earlier this week said that Barr “is not going to tell the committee how to conduct its hearing.”
During her interview Tuesday on Fox News, Conway also noted a recent report that Nadler suggested fining Trump administration officials who don’t comply with subpoenas. He also reportedly floated the idea of jailing officials who defy subpoenas.
“Are we actually dangling arrests of innocent citizens for not complying with subpoenas? I think Congress needs to calm down a little bit on this,” Conway said.
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