Joe Biden has taken a commanding lead over President Donald Trump in the 2020 race, building a wide advantage among women and nonwhite voters and making deep inroads with some traditionally Republican-leaning groups that have shifted away from Trump following his ineffective response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new national poll of registered voters by The New York Times and Siena College.Biden is currently ahead of Trump by 14 percentage points, garnering 50% of the vote compared with 36% for Trump. That is among the most dismal showings of Trump's presidency, and a sign that he is the clear underdog right now in his fight for a second term.Trump has been an unpopular president for virtually his entire time in office. He has made few efforts since his election in 2016 to broaden his support beyond the right-wing base that vaulted him into office with only 46%of the popular vote and a modest victory in the Electoral College.But among a striking cross-section of voters, the distaste for Trump has deepened as his administration failed to stop a deadly disease that crippled the economy and then as he responded to a wave of racial-justice protests with angry bluster and militaristic threats. The dominant picture that emerges from the poll is of a country ready to reject a president whom a strong majority of voters regard as failing the greatest tests confronting his administration.Biden leads Trump by enormous margins with black and Hispanic voters, and women and young people appear on track to choose Biden by an even wider margin than they favored Hillary Clinton over Trump in 2016. But the former vice president has also drawn even with Trump among male voters, whites and people in middle age and older -- groups that have typically been the backbones of Republican electoral success, including Trump's in 2016.Arlene Myles, 75, of Denver, said she had been a Republican for nearly six decades before switching her registration to independent earlier this year during Trump's impeachment trial. Myles said that when Trump was first elected, she had resolved to "give him a chance," but had since concluded that he and his party were irredeemable."I was one of those people who stuck by Nixon until he was waving goodbye," Myles said. "I thought I was a good Republican and thought they had my values, but they have gone down the tubes these last few years."Myles said she planned to vote for Biden, expressing only one misgiving: "I wish he was younger," she said.Most stark may be Biden's towering advantage among white women with college degrees, who support him over Trump by 39 percentage points. In 2016, exit polls found that group preferred Clinton to Trump by just 7 percentage points. The poll also found that Biden has narrowed Trump's advantage with less-educated white voters.The exodus of white voters from the GOP has been especially pronounced among younger voters, an ominous trend for a party that was already heavily reliant on older Americans.Fifty-two percent of whites under 45 said they supported Biden while only 30% said they supported Trump. And their opposition is intense: More than twice as many younger whites viewed the president very unfavorably than very favorably.Tom Diamond, 31, a Republican in Fort Worth, Texas, said he planned to vote for Trump but would do so with real misgivings. He called the president a "poor leader" who had mishandled the pandemic and said Biden seemed "like a guy you can trust." But Trump held views closer to his own on the economy, health care and abortion."Part of you just feels icky voting for him," Diamond said. "But definitely from a policy perspective, that's where my vote's going to go."Some unease toward Trump stems from voters' racial attitudes. According to the poll, white voters under 45 are overwhelmingly supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement, while older whites are more tepid in their views toward racial justice activism. And nearly 70% of whites under 45 said they believed the killing of George Floyd was part of a broader pattern of excessive police violence toward African Americans rather than an isolated incident.What's striking, though, is that even among white seniors, one of Trump's strongest constituencies, he has damaged himself with his conduct. About two-fifths of whites over 65 said they disapproved of Trump's handling of both the coronavirus and race relations.Trump retains a few points of strength in the poll that could offer him a way to regain a footing in the race, and the feeble condition of his candidacy right now may well represent his low point in a campaign with 4 1/2 months still to go.His approval rating is still narrowly positive on the issue of the economy, with 50% of voters giving him favorable marks compared with 45% saying the opposite. Should the fall campaign become a referendum on which candidate is better equipped to restore prosperity after the pandemic has subsided, that could give Trump a new opening to press his case.The president is also still ahead of Biden among white voters without college degrees, who hold disproportionate influence in presidential elections because of how central the Midwest is to capturing 270 electoral votes.Yet if Trump still has a significant measure of credibility with voters on the economy, he lacks any apparent political strength on the most urgent issues of the moment: the pandemic and the national reckoning on policing and race.Nearly three-fifths of voters disapprove of Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, including majorities of white voters and men. Self-described moderate voters disapproved of Trump on the coronavirus by a margin of more than 2-1.Most of the country is also rejecting Trump's call to reopen the economy as quickly as possible, even at the cost of exposing people to greater health risks. By a 21-point margin, voters said the federal government should prioritize containing the coronavirus, even if it hurts the economy, a view that aligns them with Biden.Just a third of voters said the government should focus on restarting the economy even if that entails greater public-health risks.That debate could become the central focus of the campaign in the coming weeks, as coronavirus outbreaks grow rapidly in a number of Republican-led states that have resisted the strict lockdown measures imposed in the spring by Democratic states like New York and California.The public also does not share Trump's resistance to mask wearing. The president has declined to don a mask in nearly all public appearances, even as top health officials in his administration have urged Americans to do so as a precaution against spreading the coronavirus. In the poll, 54% of people said they always wear a mask when they expect to be in proximity to other people, while another 22% said they usually wear a mask.Just 22% said they rarely or never wear a mask.Trump's job approval on race relations was just as dismal. Sixty-one percent of voters said they disapproved of Trump's handling of race, versus 33% who said they approved. By a similar margin, voters said they disapproved of his response to the protests after the death of Floyd.Trump has sought several times in the last month to use demonstrations against the police as a political wedge issue, forcing Democrats to align themselves squarely either with law-enforcement agencies or with the most strident anti-police demonstrators.The poll suggested most voters were rejecting that binary choice, as well as Trump's harsh characterization of protesters: Large majorities said they had a positive overall assessment of both the Black Lives Matter movement and the police.The picture of Biden that emerges from the poll is one of a broadly acceptable candidate who inspires relatively few strong feelings in either direction. He is seen favorably by about half of voters and unfavorably by 42%. Only a quarter said they saw him very favorably, equaling the share that sees him in very negative terms.Trump, by contrast, is seen very favorably by 27% of voters and very unfavorably by 50%.Harry Hoyt, 72, of York County in Southern Maine, said he has sometimes voted for Republican presidential candidates in the past and cast a grudging vote for Clinton in 2016. He felt better this time about his plan to vote for Biden."Biden would be a better candidate than Trump, simply because he's a nice person," Hoyt said. "One of the most important things to me is the character of the man in charge of our country."Significantly, one group that saw Biden as far more than just acceptable was black voters. Fifty-six percent of black respondents in the poll said they saw Biden very favorably, a far more enthusiastic judgment than from any other constituency.The limited passion for Biden among other Democratic constituencies does not appear to be affecting his position against Trump. Though only 13% of people under 30 said they had a very favorable opinion of the former vice president, that group is backing Biden over Trump by 34 percentage points.Nicholas Angelos, a 20-year-old voter in Bloomington, Indiana, who said he supported Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries, said he would vote for Biden as the "lesser of two evils." He said he believed the former vice president would "try his best," in contrast to Trump, whom he described as "an autocrat" and "anti-science.""We all have to compromise," said Angelos, who described himself as very liberal. He added of Biden, "I don't think he's anything special."For the moment, voters also appear unpersuaded by one of the primary attack lines Trump and his party have used against Biden: the claim that, at age 77, he is simply too old for the presidency. Trump, 74, has mocked Biden's mental acuity frequently over the last few months and his campaign has run television advertisements that cast Biden as absent-minded and inarticulate.But three in five voters said in the poll that they disagreed with the claim that Biden was too old to be an effective president. The percentage of voters who agreed, 36%, exactly matched Trump's existing support in the presidential race.Lindsay Clark, 37, who lives in the suburbs of Salt Lake City, was among the voters who said she would probably vote for Trump because she was unsure Biden was "physically and mentally up to the task" of being president. But Clark expressed little admiration for Trump, whom she called unpresidential.Clark, who voted for a third-party candidate in 2016, said she was hard-pressed to name something she really liked about Trump, eventually settling on the idea that he expressed himself bluntly."I was just trying to think if I could think of something off the top of my head that I was like, 'Yes, I loved when you did that!'" she said of Trump. "And I kind of just can't."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

House Democrats have spent much of the year averting their gaze — and their most powerful investigative weapons — from a mounting list of President Donald Trump’s scandals. But new ones keep popping up whether they like it or not.

Now a debate is bubbling up inside the Democratic Caucus about just how aggressively to confront Trump’s latest alleged abuses, particularly just four months before an election in which the president has damaged himself with near-daily unforced errors and seen his standing slide in national polls. Democrats are also eager to avoid stomping on their own election year agenda.

The House has already deployed its strongest check on the president — impeachment — with no appetite among Democratic leadership or the rank and file to pursue the all-consuming process again, this time amid a global pandemic and national debate over police brutality and institutional racism.

But Democrats can take other steps to try to impose oversight. And the question of how to address what they view as Trump’s increasing lawlessness has become more difficult as Trump’s former top national security aide, John Bolton, leveled a string of jaw-dropping allegations about abuses of power by Trump in service of his reelection. That controversy was compounded by the abrupt weekend firing by Attorney General William Barr of the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, who has overseen several Trump-connected probes.

The caucus is not nearly as splintered as it was in the lead-up Trump’s impeachment, but while some members want an aggressive congressional response, senior House Democrats say there should be limits.

“We’re only a few weeks — less than 20 weeks from the election — and we need to be concentrating on winning,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), adding, “We don’t need to get bogged down in another impeachment.”

“I do think we ought to hold hearings and bring as much of the information to the public as possible between now and whenever. But I don’t think we ought to go any further,” Cleaver added.

In short, Democrats are balancing a desperate desire to defend institutions they say are being threatened by Trump with concerns that a push to investigate will detract from other urgent national concerns and potentially undermine their own political prospects — and could ultimately be fruitless with the election a few months away.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 House Democrat, didn't downplay the need to hear from Barr and Bolton, but also acknowledged the difficult reality of slogging through the courts to enforce subpoenas or other measures before November.

“It’s a long and tortuous process,” Hoyer told reporters Tuesday. “The election is coming up. We have some four months before that happens. And as a practical matter, getting a court case through that quickly may not be possible, frankly."

Hoyer isn’t alone. Many Democrats in the caucus have “impeachment fatigue” as one senior aide put it. And while all Democrats say they want to hold the president accountable, they also don’t want to lose sight of the ultimate goal — booting Trump out of the White House. Meanwhile, some of their decisions may be made for them, as the Supreme Court weighs cases that could supercharge long-stalled investigations, or sap their energy altogether.

Not everyone is content to wager waiting until Election Day and hoping former Vice President Joe Biden denies Trump a second term. Some Democratic lawmakers and aides would rather use their megaphone to highlight the administration’s scandals every day in the run-up to the election, reasoning that doing so will attract voters, not repel them.

The divide manifested itself Monday, when lawmaker and aides grappled with whether to issue a subpoena for Barr, who has avoided testifying to the Judiciary Committee since he was confirmed in early 2019. Some committee Democrats had been clamoring for a subpoena for weeks, but Chairman Jerry Nadler said the fight wouldn’t be worth months of litigation.

Yet Barr’s effort to remove Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, prompted Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Nadler to rethink the matter. After the two talked over the weekend, Nadler initiated the subpoena process on Monday.

The move took other Democrats on the Judiciary Committee by surprise after Nadler’s team indicated they weren’t inclined to subpoena Barr during a heated staff call earlier in the day.

Barr's conduct will again be the focus Wednesday, when the Judiciary Committee holds a hearing featuring testimony from two sitting Justice Department officials who plan to allege political interference by senior DOJ officials, including Barr. One of them, prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky, told the committee in written testimony that he and three colleagues were pressured to recommend a light sentence for longtime Trump associate Roger Stone, who was convicted last year of repeatedly lying to the House Intelligence Committee and intimidating a witness to impede an ongoing investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

And lawmakers still hope to press Barr about his role in federal security officers' decision to use force — including tear gas and flash-bang grenades — against peaceful protesters across the street from the White House earlier this month, just moments ahead of Trump's decision to hold a photo op in front of nearby St. John's Episcopal Church.

Despite the media’s attention on Berman’s firing and Bolton’s book, top Democrats have been more focused on this year’s agenda — a landmark police reform bill on the floor this week, and a massive infrastructure bill on the floor the next. And any barbs at Trump, Democratic campaign officials say, should be in line with the party’s message on health care.

Rep. Cheri Bustos, who leads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, sent a memo to vulnerable members this week urging them to focus on Trump’s other headline-grabbing move over the weekend — his claim at a Tulsa, Okla., rally that he has sought to slow down coronavirus testing amid a skyrocketing number of cases. The memo made no mention of the other scandals dogging Trump. That mirrors Democrats’ 2018 approach, when they zeroed in on GOP legislation to repeal Obamacare and strip millions of their health insurance.

Trump’s scandals also didn’t come up on a caucuswide call Monday, and Pelosi mentioned the possibility of subpoenaing Barr only “in passing” on a private leadership call later in the evening, according to Democrats on both calls.

Even some of the caucus’ most prominent liberal voices, many of whom advocated fiercely for impeachment, are pushing a more measured approach now.

“I think that there are certainly things to be gained by continuing to have people testify,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a member of the Judiciary panel.

But Jayapal, like several other Democratic lawmakers and aides interviewed for this story, didn’t explicitly back deploying subpoenas or other forceful measures to compel testimony from some of Trump’s closest current and former advisers.

“Who are the best people to tell that story? There’s a lot of choices, unfortunately, and I think we have to look at the whole picture and figure out what makes the most sense,” she said.

For many Democrats, even the most fervent supporters of impeaching Trump, the dwindling calendar is their dominant reality now.

The election is fast approaching and Trump continues to generate an almost incessant stream of bad headlines, all on his own, without Democrats’ help. Plus, by ceding some of the spotlight to Trump, Democrats say they are denying the pugnacious president a foil to pit himself against.

“We’re at the same disadvantage of the last 3½ years. He sucks all of the oxygen out in the room,” said Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.). “In terms of pushing out a message, we don’t have much of an opportunity to do that.”

The internal dispute over how to confront Trump is far less of a fractious divide than it was in the run-up to impeachment. House Democrats have been forced to direct their attention elsewhere as the coronavirus took tens of thousands of lives and devastated the economy, and the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer plunged the country into a wrenching debate over race and policing.

And at least some of the “frontline” Democrats — those facing difficult reelection fights — are expressing support for robust oversight of alleged transgressions by Trump. Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), who was also an early backer of impeachment, said his constituents understand the need to put a check on potential abuses.

“It's never a problem for me to stand up for the rule of law, so long as we are also taking care of health care and infrastructure and helping people survive Covid-19,” he said. “That’s not a difficult argument to make.”

The thorniest question for lawmakers is how to handle the allegations lodged by Bolton, whose new White House memoir suggests that Trump, among other potential abuses, pleaded with Chinese President Xi Jinping to purchase American agricultural products from states crucial to Trump’s reelection. Bolton also alleges that Trump promised to influence U.S. prosecutors to do favors for foreign autocrats.

But House Democrats also have little fondness for Bolton, who infuriated the caucus last year when he refused to testify in the impeachment inquiry over Trump’s effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate his Democratic adversaries.

Now, though, Bolton has publicly affirmed the details of the House’s inquiry and lodged even more damaging accusations. Democrats have wrestled over the past week with whether to seek Bolton’s sworn testimony once more, with House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff saying, “I don't think we should wait” if the book demands deeper investigation.

“A lot of it is not a surprise, but at the same time, exposure of this president's misconduct is the best way to protect the country,” Schiff said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “Congress can take steps to protect the country.”

The House’s investigative decisions may hinge partly on a looming Supreme Court decision about whether lawmakers can access Trump’s tax returns or personal financial data from his banks or accountant. The court’s ruling in that case could arm the House with reams of new information that suggest conflicts of interest between Trump and the countries with which he’s conducting foreign policy.

And there’s another imminent issue: Longtime Trump ally Roger Stone is slated to go to prison on June 30 for his conviction on charges of lying to Congress repeatedly during its investigation of Russia’s attack on the 2016 election.

Trump has strongly suggested a pardon or commutation would be forthcoming — sure to enrage Democrats who have treated any move to shield Stone from criminal consequences as potential obstruction of justice.

Whether Congress is able to secure testimony from key Trump administration figures in all of these fights is a difficult challenge for the House, but whether to at least make the attempt is up to them.

“I do think that is our duty,” said Malinowski. “If the administration refuses to allow people to testify, I don't think it's good for maintaining the right long-term balance between the branches of our government for Congress to say, whatever, it's not worth fighting about.”

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton joins Bret Baier on 'Special Report' to discuss his days in the Trump administration and his new book, 'The Room Where It Happened.'

Senate Republicans on Tuesday distanced themselves from President Donald Trump’s claim that former President Barack Obama committed “treason,” refusing to back up the unfounded allegation that has fueled the president’s revenge campaign against his predecessor.

In general, Republicans have shied away from directly criticizing the president’s comments and actions as the November election approaches. In fact, they have heeded Trump’s encouragement to undertake wide-ranging investigations targeting Obama administration officials for their roles in opening up the investigations that have ensnared Trump and his associates for years.

But accusing Obama of treason was a bridge too far, they said.

“I don’t think that President Obama committed treason,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who is up for reelection this year.

“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” added Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “I don’t have any evidence to believe he committed treason.”

Trump’s allies often claim the president was joking whenever he makes a controversial statement, even when Trump’s tone is serious and he repeats the claim several times. For example, Trump told a reporter on Tuesday that “I don’t kid” when asked whether he was serious when he said he had ordered a slowdown of coronavirus testing.

“It’s a silly, comedic thing, and you guys got to stop taking it all so seriously,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who laughed off the question. “I don’t think the former president committed treason.”

But not everyone is amused. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), one of Trump’s more vocal GOP critics, said that she did not see the president’s comments but that “obviously, he shouldn’t have said that.”

In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network on Monday, Trump accused Obama of treason but did not provide evidence to back up the allegation. It’s a constant refrain from Trump, whose allies have ramped up their attacks against Obama in recent months — accusing the former president of illegally targeting Trump and his associates during the 2016 campaign and the presidential transition period.

Treason, the only crime specifically defined in the U.S. Constitution, is punishable by death and has rarely been charged in modern times. But Trump has a penchant for accusing his political foes of treason, most notably Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the House Intelligence Committee chairman, who led the impeachment efforts against the president. While presidents often criticize their predecessors, it’s highly unusual for one president to accuse another of treason.

GOP senators avoided echoing those unfounded claims. While many of them are sympathetic to Trump’s concerns about the origins of the Russia investigation, for example, Republicans simply did not want to talk about it on Tuesday.

“I’ve got more important things to worry about,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who is leading an investigation into the Obama administration’s activities during the presidential transition process in late 2016 and early 2017, similarly declined to endorse Trump’s “treason” charge.

“The president speaks for himself,” Johnson said. “I’m looking at the corruption with the transition process, which I think is evidently true. And we just need to figure out all that did happen so that the American people understand it, so hopefully it’ll never happen again. I’m not going to respond to what the president said.”

Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) described any treason allegation as “inflammatory,” but did not comment on Trump’s remarks, saying he had only heard about them.

The GOP’s resigned response to Trump’s comments also suggests a level of fatigue with being asked to answer for the latest tweet or controversial remark, while knowing that any semblance of criticism can prompt a fiery tweet from the president himself. Asked about a separate subject on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell accused reporters of trying to get him into a food fight with Trump by asking him about the president’s controversial statements.

“Every week, you all try to get me into a running commentary on the president’s comments about a variety of different things,” McConnell (R-Ky.) said.

In the aftermath of his acquittal in the Senate’s impeachment trial, Trump has gone after his predecessor and other senior Obama administration officials as he seeks revenge for what he calls a “coup” against his campaign and presidency. Trump has said it began with the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into possible ties between his presidential campaign and the Kremlin.

But Trump has not cited evidence for the claims, and a Justice Department inspector general’s report last year stated that the counterintelligence probe was properly opened in 2016. The same watchdog report documented a series of errors and omissions in the Justice Department’s applications for surveillance against a Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page, which the Senate Judiciary Committee is investigating in addition to the FBI’s handling of the investigation into Michael Flynn, the president’s former national security adviser.

“I don’t make accusations like that until I know more about the facts,” Graham said.

“I don’t have any evidence to believe [Obama] committed treason, but I do believe what happened after the election with surveilling General Flynn was very problematic and I’d like to know more about it,” Graham added.

Earlier this year, Trump pushed Graham to haul Obama before the committee to testify about his potential involvement in the initial investigations that targeted Trump’s campaign and his associates. But Graham quickly dismissed that idea, saying it would set a dangerous precedent.

“I understand President Trump’s frustration, but be careful what you wish for. Just be careful what you wish for,” Graham said at the time.

In his interview on Monday, the president also referenced the investigation being led by John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, which focuses on the origins of the Russia probe and whether there is enough evidence to indict former Obama administration officials.

“I never met Durham because I want to stay out of it, because otherwise it’s going to look political,” Trump said. “Let’s see what they come up with — but they don’t have to tell me. All I have to do is read the papers.”

House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler (D., N.Y.) confirmed Monday night that his committee was preparing to subpoena Attorney General Bill Barr for his testimony, despite saying earlier this month that such a move was unlikely."We have begun the process to issue that subpoena," Nadler told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow in an interview. On June 2, Nadler shot down the idea of subpoenaing Barr, saying, "I am not going to spend months litigating a subpoena with an Attorney General who has already spent years resisting the courts and legitimate congressional oversight.”On Sunday, Nadler claimed that Barr “deserves impeachment" for his alleged politicization of the Justice Department, but said trying to do so would be "a waste of time" because “corrupt” Senate Republicans would not vote to convict."We know that we have a corrupt Republican majority in the Senate which will not consider an impeachment no matter what the evidence and no matter what the facts," Nadler said.Nadler’s spokesman Daniel Schwarz first confirmed to Axios that the subpoena was in the works. Democrats have called to investigate Barr over the abrupt decision to oust Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, Geoffrey Berman, who has been in charge of several investigations connected to President Trump.House Judiciary ranking member Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) slammed the decision to subpoena Barr in a letter to Nadler, saying “however much you disagree with the Justice Department’s policy decisions—or agree with the Obama-Biden Administration’s targeting of the Trump campaign—those are not legitimate reasons to compel Attorney General Barr’s testimony at this time.”Barr was supposed to appear in front of the House Judiciary Committee on March 31, but the hearing was called off due to the coronavirus pandemic.

To some House Democrats, it’s almost as if Attorney General Bill Barr lives to troll them. Late Friday night, Barr sent his latest shockwave through the political world by announcing that the New York-based prosecutor who is conducting some of the most sensitive investigations into President Trump and his inner circle would be stepping down and replaced by a Trump appointee. That move came weeks after Barr reportedly personally oversaw the clearing of Black Lives Matter protesters from the White House with tear gas. Before that, his Department of Justice dropped the criminal case against Michael Flynn, the former Trump national security adviser who had pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with Russia in 2016. And before that, the DOJ prosecutors on Roger Stone’s case resigned en masse when DOJ brass scuttled their sentencing recommendation and forced a more generous one. Beyond that, Barr has ignored subpoenas for his testimony before House lawmakers, and he has indefinitely blown off a date—scheduled for March and later postponed to June—to testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee. Bill Barr Has Pie on His Face, and One More Trick Up His Sleeve With John Durham’s October SurpriseThe attorney general’s pronounced and extremely extended middle finger has put House Democrats in a bind, caught between a desire from some to pursue the most aggressive options available to counter Barr—including impeaching him—and concerns from another wing of the party that is wary of the political costs of aggressively going after an administration they believe is headed for defeat in November anyway.Attempting to navigate this dilemma yet again is Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), the Judiciary Chairman tasked most directly with overseeing the Department of Justice. Appearing on CNN on Sunday, Nadler dismissed the notion of impeaching the attorney general—an idea championed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and entertained by members of his own committee—as a “waste of time” because the “corrupt” GOP-held Senate wouldn’t remove Barr from office. Nadler told Jake Tapper that the committee would pursue other tactics, like advancing legislation that aims to decrease funding to his office. And on Monday, Axios reported that the chairman would move to subpoena Barr for testimony on July 2. But Nadler’s dismissal of impeachment landed poorly among some members of his own party, including members of Judiciary, who have said they would like to see the entire oversight toolbox on the table. Impeachment is a power Congress retains, though one it has used exceedingly rarely. But, these members argue, the times call for extraordinary reactions.  “It’s possible he’s going to keep engaging in outrageous conduct,” Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), a Judiciary member, told The Daily Beast. “We are going to keep investigating Bill Barr’s outrageous conduct and see what we uncover… I wouldn’t foreclose any options before we have even really started an investigation.”On a call Monday evening, staffers on the Judiciary Committee discussed options for how to move forward with respect to Barr. While some advocated for taking more aggressive actions for getting him in front of Congress, others said going after the attorney general would expend too many resources. In general, some Democrats close to the Judiciary Committee have come away with the impression that leadership at the committee and the caucus believe that they don’t have time to impeach Barr before November’s election.House Democrats are all too familiar with the challenge of conducting oversight of an administration that rejects it alongside a Senate that is run by a Republican Party that doesn’t seem particularly interested in it. But the brazenness of Barr’s recent moves, and of his disregard for House Democrats’ oversight in general, has put pressure on them to demonstrate they understand the urgency of the moment—if only for setting benchmarks about acceptable conduct.“Bill Barr is not on the ballot,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), an early supporter of Trump’s impeachment. “This is not about a presidential election, it’s about the rule of law… our oath of office just compels us to do our job. That job starts with the investigation. If it highlights impeachable conduct, we should follow that path, without fear or favor.”Bill Barr’s Above the Law. The Only Answer Is to Impeach Him. Many Democrats believe Barr's abrupt Friday night announcement about changes at the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York were a dangerous new low, even for an official whose conduct has alarmed them for over a year. Up to that point, Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney, had been conducting investigations that have rattled Trumpworld—including probes into Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, that have the potential to surface potentially damaging new information.After Barr announced Berman would be replaced with Securities and Exchange Commissioner Jay Clayton, a lawyer who Trump appointed, Berman shot back saying he wouldn’t leave office until the Senate had confirmed a successor. On Saturday, Barr announced that Berman was formally being fired by the president and that his deputy would take his place.After seeing the news break on Friday night, Lieu said that it crossed his mind immediately that SDNY must have been working on “one or more investigations or cases that Donald Trump does not want to come to light.” He and other lawmakers believe that Berman would be open to testifying before Congress about why he may have been sacked. Even prior to the latest episode, Nadler had scheduled a Wednesday hearing in House Judiciary about politicization at DOJ—which will feature two former prosecutors. The chairman floated on CNN that Berman may testify then, but no such appearance has been announced yet. “The most important thing is we immediately get to the bottom of what happened here,” said Huffman. “If it’s every bit as craven as it looks, people might take a second look at impeachment. Even though Chairman Nadler has been a bit dismissive of that, things have a way of changing if the facts present themselves so irrefutably.”The tensions that Nadler confronts over how to handle Barr are neither new nor novel. During the Obama years, House Republicans demanded the impeachment of then-Attorney General Eric Holder for what they argued was his failure to comply with oversight requests related to the investigation into the Fast and Furious gun running probe. Amid pushback from leadership, they ultimately settled on holding Holder in contempt of Congress.In the run-up to Trump’s own impeachment, meanwhile, it was members of the Judiciary Committee, along with the more progressive members of the caucus, who pushed for removal of the president while party leaders, and more vulnerable lawmakers, warned about the possible political costs. The Ukraine revelations in September ultimately shook that stalemate loose and launched the impeachment inquiry. But it seems like that internal caucus tension remains.Privately, a faction of the party has warned that the impeachment process showed that Democrats’ oversight efforts would amount to little until Trump was defeated, or they flipped control of the Senate, or both. Publicly, lawmakers like Huffman and Lieu say it would be reckless to rule any remedy out. “I know Congress doesn’t want to take it on, but it’s a really big deal,” said Molly Claflin, a former Senate Democratic staffer for the Russia investigation and now an attorney with the watchdog group American Oversight. “I know Chairman Nadler is saying impeachment is a waste of time, Democrats are tired, and that oversight space has shrunk because this administration doesn’t cooperate, but I believe this view takes a shortsighted view of the role of Congress.”“Congress is acting as if the end of the impeachment trial, or the election in five months, means the end of oversight into Trump,” she went on. “We may have four more months or four more years of Trump, but Congress has a responsibility to get to the truth.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.