WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress, escalating the Democrats’ extraordinary legal battle with the Trump administration over access to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia report.

Meanwhile, the Senate intelligence committee subpoenaed Donald Trump Jr. on Wednesday, calling him in to answer questions about his 2017 testimony to the panel as part of its probe into Russian election interference.

That’s according to two people familiar with the subpoena who discussed it on condition of anonymity. It’s the first known subpoena of a member of President Donald Trump’s immediate family, and a new sign that the Senate panel is continuing with its own Russia investigation even after the release of Mueller’s report.

It’s unclear if Trump Jr. will comply with the subpoena. A person close to the president’s eldest son, who requested anonymity to discuss the matter, said Wednesday that there was an agreement when Trump Jr. first testified before the intelligence panel in 2017 that he would only come once, and that he has continued to cooperate by producing documents and answering written questions.

The person called the new request a public relations stunt and criticized the chairman of the panel, North Carolina Republican Sen. Richard Burr, for calling Trump Jr. in.

In the House, the vote by the Judiciary Committee capped a day of ever-deepening dispute between congressional Democrats and the president, who for the first time invoked the principle of executive privilege, claiming the right to block lawmakers from the full report on Mueller’s probe of Russian interference to help Trump in the 2016 election.

Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York declared the action by Trump’s Justice Department a clear new sign of the president’s “blanket defiance” of Congress’ constitutional rights to conduct oversight.

“We did not relish doing this, but we have no choice,” Nadler said after the vote.

The White House’s blockade, he said, “is an attack on the ability of the American people to know what the executive branch is doing.” He said, “This cannot be.”

But Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said it was disappointing that members of Congress “have chosen to engage in such inappropriate political theatrics.”

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said neither the White House nor Barr “will comply with Chairman Nadler’s unlawful and reckless demands.”

Though the White House initially hesitated on invoking privilege, Trump told his staff and political advisers in recent weeks to refuse to cooperate with Democrats, believing the party’s goal was simply to damage him politically going into his re-election campaign. The coming legal battle could stretch to 2020, and the White House is aiming to tie up congressional probes until Election Day.

Executive privilege is the president’s power to keep information from the courts, Congress and the public to protect the confidentiality of the Oval Office decision-making process.

The president’s decision was weeks in the making, the next inevitable escalation between the White House and Congress over a number of probes. The White House has rejected all efforts to probe Trump’s business dealings or tax returns as well as the West Wing’s security clearance procedure.

The committee voted along party lines, 24-16, to recommend the full House hold Barr in contempt, but only after some five hours of heated and, at times, emotional testimony.

Democrats made their case that Congress was at a historic juncture as it confronts what they consider Trump’s stonewalling of lawmakers’ ability to conduct oversight of the administration.

Republicans portrayed the majority as angry and lashing out at Barr after the special counsel did not find that Trump colluded with Russia to swing the 2016 election.

Said Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas: “The president now seeks to take a wrecking ball to the Constitution of the United States.”

And Rep. Cedric Richmond of Louisiana said the road ahead may be “messy” but Democrats must fight to “protect our democracy.” Other Democrats called the standoff a “serious” and “grave” moment.

However, the panel’s top Republican, Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, said Democrats were manufacturing a crisis and rushing the process to “sully Bill Barr’s good name.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, a Trump ally, said the Democrats were trying to “delegitimize” the president and biding time before they try to impeach him.

“Get over it,” Gaetz said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said the next step will be consideration by the full House. Nadler said that will happen soon.

If approved by the House, where the Democrats hold a solid majority, the contempt resolution would almost certainly move to an unusual, and potentially protracted, multipronged court battle with the Trump administration.

The contempt finding could be referred to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, a Justice Department official who would be likely to defend rather than oppose Barr. Democratic House leaders could also file a lawsuit, though the case could take months or even years to resolve. Some committee members have suggested they also could fine Barr as he withholds information.

Barr released a redacted version of Mueller’s 400-plus-page report to the public last month, but Democrats subpoenaed the full document , along with underlying evidence.

The department has rejected that demand, while allowing a few top lawmakers from the House and Senate to view a version with fewer redactions. That version blacks out grand jury information, which needs a judge’s approval for release, and it doesn’t include the report’s underlying evidence. Democrats have said they won’t view that version until they get broader access.