Schiff: We’ll see Mueller report
Congressional Democrats will ‘‘obviously’’ take whatever steps are necessary to make public the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller, including subpoenaing his final report, calling him to testify and taking the Trump administration to court, Rep. Adam Schiff said yesterday.
Schiff, the California Democrat who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said on ABC’s This Week that ‘‘we are going to get to the bottom of this.’’ He was referring to Mueller’s nearly two-year investigation of Russia’s 2016 election interference and links to President Donald Trump’s campaign and administration – and whether the president obstructed justice in the investigation.
Schiff’s comments reflected many Democrats’ concerns that Trump’s new attorney general, William Barr, will keep Mueller’s findings mostly private.
Other developments are casting a cloud over Trump’s planned summit this week in Hanoi with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Trump’s former legal fixer, Michael Cohen, is to testify before three congressional committees, and a Mueller sentencing memo at the weekend Friday excoriated the president’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort for ‘‘brazen’’ criminality.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Cohen’s testimony would not be a distraction to Trump during the meeting with Kim, the two leaders’ second summit.
‘‘Congress has its own authority,’’ Pompeo said on Fox News Sunday. ‘‘They can move how they choose to proceed. I know what we’ll be focused on. I am very confident that the president and our team will be focused on the singular objective that we’re headed to Hanoi for.’’ With the Democrats now controlling the House of Representatives, Schiff has emerged as a key figure in investigating Trump.
He has also promised a wideranging investigation of the president’s finances.
While Schiff has pledged for weeks to seek maximum transparency on Mueller’s findings, his comments yesterday added to pressure on Barr, in the attorney general’s second week on the job, to make public more than the legally required summary of the special counsel’s evidence and conclusions.
‘‘We will obviously subpoena the report,’’ Schiff said on ABC. ‘‘We will bring Bob Mueller in to testify before Congress. We will take it to court if necessary.’’
Referring to the Justice Department, he said, ‘‘In the end, I think the department understands they’re going to have to make this public.’’ He said Barr’s legacy would be ‘‘tarnished’’ by any attempt to keep key findings secret.
Much of this is uncharted legal territory, however, and some Republican lawmakers and legal experts have questioned whether House Democrats could enforce a subpoena.
‘‘I don’t know that you can,’’ Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said on CBS’ Face the Nation. Blunt, who is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he believes that the scope of investigations against Trump has become too broad.
– Los Angeles Times