McConnell's former chief of staff on Barr contempt vote: ‘It is theater at its finest and it’s partisanship at its finest’
Josh Holmes, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell's former chief of staff, reacted Thursday to the House panel's recommendation to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt saying, “It is theater at its finest and it’s partisanship at its finest.”
Josh Holmes, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's former chief of staff, reacted Thursday to the House panel's recommendation to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt dubbing it, “theater at its finest and it’s partisanship at its finest.”
Holmes made the comments on “America’s Newsroom” on Thursday, one day after House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., declared a "constitutional crisis" following his committee’s vote to hold the attorney general in contempt for defying a subpoena for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s unredacted Russia report and underlying documents.
“This is an absolute embarrassment in my view for the House of Representatives,” Holmes said.
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Holmes also referenced Nadler’s tweet from 2012 where Nadler slammed House Republicans for holding the attorney general at the time, Eric Holder, in contempt, calling it a “hypocrisy.”
In 2012, House Republicans took the same step against then-AG Holder for refusing to hand over documents related to the Fast and Furious gun-running scandal, where Department of Justice officials tracked thousands of guns smuggled across the border but did nothing to stop them.
“Just joined the #walkout of the House chamber to protest the shameful, politically-motivated GOP vote holding AG [Eric] Holder in contempt,” Nadler tweeted in 2012.
He joined more than 100 Democrats in walking out over the vote to hold the Obama-era DOJ leader in contempt.
“I think the biggest part about Jerry Nadler is that he has full, unredacted access to the Mueller report. In fact, he can see the entire thing and he has not availed himself of that opportunity,” Holmes said in response.
“If his true motive here is to try to get the facts and try to understand what Mueller has reported you would think at a bare minimum you would read the report that’s already available before you would start having these circus hearings and trying to hold the attorney general in contempt.”
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Holmes also discussed President Trump’s rally in battleground Florida the night before saying, “The campaign has started and I think it looks OK here at the beginning for President Trump.”
He added, “I think there’s a good golden rule of politics, the candidate who looks like he’s having the most fun is usually the one that’s winning."
"And the contrast there for President Trump at his rally last night in Florida, I mean everybody seemed to be having a lot of fun, and you can contrast that with how these 2020ers have been marching around the country in this sort of dour mood, full of negativity.”
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Regarding Trump’s rallies, Holmes said they are “the first entertaining rallies in the history of politics,” adding that “nobody does it better than President Trump.”
“Mostly these things are pretty dry and it’s all about speaking to the partisans but I mean I think most people can watch this and be entertained one way or another."
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