The House Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday to recommend that the House hold Attorney General William P. Barr in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over Robert S. Mueller III’s unredacted report, hours after President Trump asserted executive privilege to shield the full report and underlying evidence from Congress.

The committee’s 24-to-16 contempt vote, taken after hours of debate over the future of American democracy, was the first official House action to punish a government official in the standoff over the Mueller report. The Justice Department denounced the move as unnecessary and intended to stoke a fight.

After the vote, the Judiciary Committee chairman, Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, swatted away questions about possible impeachment, but added, “We are now in a constitutional crisis.”

The contempt vote raised the stakes in the battle over evidence and witnesses as Democrats investigate Mr. Trump over behavior detailed by Mr. Mueller, the special counsel, in his report into Russian election interference and possible obstruction of justice. By the day’s end, it seemed all but inevitable that the competing claims would have to be settled in the nation’s courts rather than on Capitol Hill.

“Our fight is not just about the Mueller report — although we must have access to the Mueller report,” Mr. Nadler said during a debate. “Our fight is about defending the rights of Congress, as an independent branch, to hold the president, any president, accountable.”

I’m not a lawyer, I’m an engineer, dammit,^* but this assertion of executive privilege seems bogus even to me.

Executive privilege is used to prevent the revelation of executive deliberations by the principals involved, not the contents of a criminal investigation.

Seriously, start impeachment hearings, and get the Sergeant at Arms of the United States House of Representatives to start throwing those jokers in the cell in the House basement.

Once again, it ain’t the crime, it;s the coverup.

On the other hand, I am not at all convinced that the current corrupt 5 on the Supreme Court won’t vote to overturn United States v. Nixon, which required that Nixon turn over what became known as the “Smoking Gun Tape.”

I love it when I get to go all Dr. McCoy!