Nancy Pelosi Declares Congress the 'Superior Branch' of Government
With a view that conflicts sharply with the country’s Founding Fathers, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi bragged on Wednesday that Congress is the “superior branch” of government.
During an interview on “Washington Post Live,” reporter Robert Costa asked Pelosi for her opinion on whether Congress is functioning as a coequal branch of government.
“I think we’re a superior branch, quite frankly,” Pelosi responded. “We have the power to make the law and the president enforces the law. So we have a big role. We’re closest to the people and we have a big role to play.”
But as Fox News noted, Pelosi seemed to ignore the first three articles of the U.S. Constitution dictating three branches of government: legislative, executive and judicial.
The separation of powers is formatted in this way so that all branches are coequal, and that the system of checks and balances demands that no branch is “superior” over the other.
Pelosi’s statement also comes at a time when the White House and Congress are locked in major conflicts over sensitive materials.
In another part of the interview with Costa, Pelosi discussed the possibility of the House finding Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress over his refusal to release a full, unredacted report of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
She said that his impeachment is not “off the table.”
Conservative commentators were not amused.
.@SpeakerPelosi‘s attacks on Barr are far worse than anything Trump said about Mueller. Trump was right about the witch hunt. Pelosi is lying about Barr.
— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) May 8, 2019
With some Democrats, such as former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, suggesting that Barr should be arrested until he agrees to testify, Costa asked Pelosi if she believes Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin should be arrested as well.
Currently, Mnuchin is clashing with the House Ways and Means Committee over the committee’s demands for President Donald Trump’s personal tax returns.
The conflict escalated Tuesday evening when The New York Times published a report based on IRS tax transcripts from 1985 to 1994, claiming Trump reported more than $1 billion in his real estate businesses during the decade.
In response, Trump called the report a “Fake News hit job!”
.@costareports: “Could you hold the Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin in contempt? Some Democrats have even raised the prospect of arresting the Treasury Secretary if he does not comply…”
.@SpeakerPelosi: “We do have a little jail down in the basement of the Capitol.” pic.twitter.com/kqmw83fHWr
— CSPAN (@cspan) May 8, 2019
Pelosi tried to make light of the question.
“We do have a jail in the basement of the Capitol, but if we were arresting all of the people in the administration, we would have an overcrowded jail situation,” she joked. “And I’m not for that.”
Pelosi also reiterated Wednesday that Trump is “goading” Democrats and becoming “self-impeachable” by obstructing aides from testifying on the Mueller report and blocking subpoenas from the House Judiciary Committee.
The latest official to be subpoenaed is former White House Counsel Don McGahn. The White House blocked his testimony and the requested documents, saying that the “committee should direct future requests for those documents to the White House,” according to Fox News.
“The point is, that every single day, whether it’s obstruction, obstruction, obstruction of having people come to the table with facts, ignoring subpoenas every single day, the president is making a case,” she said according to Fox.
Trump, meanwhile, made his feelings clear in a Twitter post early Wednesday that quoted U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, speaking in an interview Sunday with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo.
“The real “Obstruction of Justice” is what the Democrats are trying to do to this Attorney General.” Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). @MariaBartiromo
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2019
Although Mueller’s report revealed no collusion with Russia in the 2016 elections, Democrats are still looking to obtain a shred of evidence to target Trump.
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