Schiff: Don’t cover up Mueller’s report

No excuse to bury findings on Trump and security

Last week, the House voted 420-0 to make special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings and report public. I hope Attorney General Bill Barr was watching.

Contrary to the public’s near universal support for making Mueller’s conclusions known, transparency is not assured. Barr, who expressed skepticism about the investigation before his nomination, may claim that Department of Justice regulations and policy justify withholding nearly all of Mueller’s work from Congress and the public.

The overwhelming House vote makes clear that would be unacceptable. With narrow redactions for classified information, we expect the public release not only of Barr’s report on Mueller’s activities, but also of Mueller’s complete report to Barr.

That is not all. Mueller’s probe began as a counterintelligence investigation, first made public by former FBI Director James Comey. The evidence uncovered, whether or not it results in criminal charges, is of utmost importance. It may reflect on a threat to the country’s security, and it cannot be withheld.

Congress has an overriding interest in obtaining this underlying evidence. If the president or anyone around him has been compromised by a hostile foreign power — criminal or not — that must be exposed to protect the country.

Nevertheless, there are troubling suggestions that Barr may resist. Outgoing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein recently cast doubt on the need for transparency. Last week, two anonymous sources described as senior department officials told ABC News it would be consistent with past practices if Justice withheld information from Mueller’s investigation.

This claim withers under scrutiny and an examination of the department’s actions over the past two years.

During the last session of Congress, the Republican majority sought voluminous discovery from the department regarding the Hillary Clinton email investigation, as well as the ongoing Mueller investigation. Last July, the department informed me that it had given more than 880,000 pages of internal investigative records from the Clinton probe to the GOP-led Congress, with more to come. These documents also included highly sensitive material related to the Mueller investigation.

I made clear to top department officials that if they reinforced a precedent of this kind, they would have to live with it, even if Congress changed hands. Surely the department could not provide information about Clinton but then withhold equivalent information about a sitting president.

Yet this appears to be where the department is heading. The justification given by the two anonymous Justice sources is head-spinning: They blame Comey. In this view, by publicly foreclosing prosecution of Clinton while also criticizing her, Comey gave the department no choice but to oblige congressional requests for materials.

But DOJ gave Congress the documents in response to subpoenas issued after Comey’s firing, not before. And it was not an aberration. Since Watergate, DOJ and the intelligence community have given investigative and counterintelligence records to Congress in matters of surpassing public interest.

Congress’ institutional interest in obtaining Mueller’s evidence meets and exceeds this bar. Because President Donald Trump is positioned to interfere in an investigation in which he may be implicated — and indeed has sought to do so repeatedly — the prospect of a cover-up is far from speculative. That was not the case in the Clinton investigation; there was no risk the candidate could influence a probe during someone else’s administration.

Finally, the Justice Department policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted makes the need for transparency even more compelling. If the department holds that the president cannot be indicted, but at the same time withholds evidence of his wrongdoing from Congress and the public — that is a recipe for impunity. No one is above the law. Not this president. Not any president. Should Justice abandon its own practices and employ a double standard when the need for transparency is most vital, it will stain the department’s reputation for years to come. Attorney General Barr, do not make that your legacy.