White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders slammed House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler on Thursday, saying he has “lost confidence in himself and his capability to do his job” after he called for staff attorneys to question Attorney General William Barr.
On Thursday morning, the New York Democrat convened a meeting of the House Judiciary Committee, leaving a solitary empty chair in place of the attorney general, who boycotted the hearing.
Barr told the committee Wednesday that he wouldn’t attend the hearing to testify about special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia probe because he only wanted to be questioned by members of the panel.
“I think what we’re seeing from Chairman Nadler is he’s incapable of holding power,” Sanders told reporters Thursday morning.
“If he and his committee aren’t capable of actually asking the attorney general themselves and need to staff that out, it seems like a pretty pathetic moment for the chairman of that committee and look — we lost confidence in Jerry Nadler a long time ago, but it’s surprising to find out he’s actually lost confidence in himself and his capability to do his job.
“If he can’t and he’s not capable of asking the attorney general questions, maybe he should step down and resign and allow somebody else that can,” she added.
In an earlier interview on Fox News, Sanders was asked if President Trump had anything to do with Barr skipping the hearing.
She insisted the president had nothing to do with the snub and went on to assail the Democrats “who embarrassed themselves” during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing Wednesday.
“The outrageous questioning that they laid out to the attorney general, frankly, was astonishing,” Sanders said on Fox News.
“There is no witness is because the Democrats saw what happened yesterday and they’ve decided they’re incapable of actually asking questions of the attorney general,” she added.