The US House Judiciary Committee prepared to move forward on Wednesday with a contempt citation against Attorney General William Barr for defying a congressional subpoena demanding access to the full, unredacted Mueller report. In the latest escalation of a battle between Democrats and Republican President Donald Trump, the panel was set to meet at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) and vote on a resolution recommending that the full House of Representatives find Barr in contempt of Congress. Committee staff and Justice Department officials worked behind the scenes in hopes of a deal to avert the proceedings. "Still scheduled," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler told reporters when asked if the committee vote would go forward as planned, following talks with Justice Department officials that made little headway on Tuesday. Barr released a redacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on his 22-month investigation into Russian election meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. Nadler subpoenaed the full document and underlying evidence, saying the material is necessary for lawmakers to determine whether Trump obstructed justice by trying to upend the Mueller probe. Barr missed two subpoena deadlines for turning over the material, the latest on Monday. "We remain unanimously determined on our side of the aisle to get the unredacted report, as we've demanded," Representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat on Nadler's committee, told reporters. The redacted Mueller report details extensive contacts between Trump's 2016 campaign and Moscow, but did not find there was a conspiracy between Moscow and the campaign. The report also describes actions Trump took to try to impede Mueller's investigation. — Reuters
