Dems issue subpoena amid calls for impeachment

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena Friday for special counsel Robert Mueller’s full report as Democrats intensified their investigation of President Donald Trump, but leaders stopped short of liberal demands for impeachment proceedings.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has insisted on a methodical, step-by-step approach to the House’s oversight of the Trump administration, and she refuses to consider impeachment without public support, including from Republicans, which seems unlikely. But in light of Mueller’s findings , Democratic leaders are under mounting pressure from the party’s rising stars, deep-pocketed donors and even a presidential contender to seize the moment as a jumping-off point for trying to remove Trump from office.

That approach isn’t enough for some liberals who see in Trump’s actions not just a president unfit for office but evidence of obstruction serious enough that Mueller said he could not declare Trump exonerated.

Barr sent Congress a redacted version of the Mueller report, blacking out several types of material, including classified information, material pertaining to ongoing investigations and grand jury evidence.

Nadler said he was open to working with the department on accommodations, but he also said the committee “needs and is entitled to the full version of the report and the underlying evidence consistent with past practice.”

But the committee’s top Republican, Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, said the subpoena was “wildly overbroad” and that Trump already had declined to assert executive privilege over the Mueller report in a move of “unprecedented openness.”