Monday on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) said he was willing to “eliminate” Attorney General William Barr’s office budget if he ignores the subpoena for him to testify before Congress in their investigation on Barr’s decision to fire SDNY prosecutor Geoffrey Berman.
Host Rachel Maddow said, “It’s been reported over the course of this evening, both Axios and now NBC News reporting that you are— that you intend to send a subpoena to the attorney general for his testimony in this investigation that you’re launching. Is that true? And what do you expect will be the result?”
Nadler said, “Well, we have begun the process. It takes a process. We have begun the process to issue that subpoena. Yes, it is very much true. We are doing that.”
Maddow said, “Do you expect that Attorney General Barr will respect the subpoena, or do you expect that he’ll defy it?”
Nadler said, “Well, we don’t know that. Subpoenas are supposed to be respected, obviously, but the corruption of the Attorney General Barr may lead him to try to defy it. Let me say we have other remedies too, to try to force the attorney general. We can eliminate his office budget. There are a number of things we can do, which we will do.”
Maddow asked, “His office budget, like his paper clips budget? Or does he have some sort of large discretionary amount of funding that you could cut off? What do you mean by his office budget?”
Nadler said, “We are talking about the budget in the Department of Justice.”
Maddow said, “Oh.”
Follow Pam Key On Twitter @pamkeyNEN