House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Thursday railed against Attorney General Bill Barr but wouldn’t throw her support behind calls from fellow Democrats to impeach him.
During a Washington Post Live interview on Thursday, Pelosi instead suggested that the best way to oust Barr is to elect Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden as president.
“One hundred and thirty one days from now, we will have the solution to many problems, one of them being Barr,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi went on to call Barr a “mess” in light of a House Judiciary Committee hearing the day before. During the hearing, Democrats accused Barr of politicizing the Justice Department by citing his history of intervening in criminal cases to the benefit of former Trump advisers and the tumultuous ouster of U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman last weekend.
“Anyone who saw that testimony will know that Barr is a mess,” Pelosi said. “It’s a disgrace. The Department of Justice, I have been talking about that for a while.”
Pelosi added that Barr is “contemptible,” noting how the Democratic-led House voted to hold Barr in criminal contempt of for defying congressional subpoenas.
“There’s no question about that,” Pelosi said. “But at this point, let’s solve our problems by going to the polls and voting on Election Day, 131 days from now.”
Pelosi’s remarks are at odds with House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler’s (D-NY) on Wednesday. Nadler told CNN that his committee “may very well” pursue impeachment of Barr, who will testify before the committee in July.
Nadler, who is poised to subpoena the attorney general ahead of his hearing next month, initially backed off growing calls to impeach Barr last weekend by arguing that it would be a “waste of time” because of the Republican-led Senate.
When asked why his view had changed following the House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Nadler told CNN that he thinks “the weight of the evidence and of what’s happened leads to that conclusion.”
