House launches fight for full Mueller report
Subpoena could set off an epic legal battle
Committee authorizes subpoena, which could start lengthy legal battle
WASHINGTON – The House Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday to authorize a subpoena for special counsel Robert Mueller’s full report and the evidence his investigators gathered, setting up what could be a historic legal clash with the Justice Department.
The panel also voted to authorize subpoenas for evidence from some of President Donald Trump’s former top advisers, including strategist Steve Bannon, communications director Hope Hicks, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, White House counsel Donald McGahn and counsel Ann Donaldson.
The committee did not issue the subpoena immediately. Instead, the vote gave Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., the authority to do so, the first step by Congress to force Attorney General William Barr to release Mueller’s entire confidential report about Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The committee approved the subpoena by a party-line vote of 24-17.
Nadler said Mueller’s report “probably isn’t the ‘total exoneration’ the president claims it to be,” so Congress must review the whole thing. He said the Justice Department should not seek to withhold parts of it, as Barr has said he plans to do.
“We are dealing now not with the president’s private affairs, but with a sustained attack on the integrity of the republic by the president and his closest advisers,” Nadler said. “This committee requires the full report and the underlying materials because it is our job, not the attorney general’s, to determine whether President Trump has abused his office.”
Mueller completed his investigation and submitted his report to Barr on March 22. Barr said the investigation did not establish that Trump or his campaign had coordinated with efforts by the Russian government to influence the 2016 election. Mueller declined to draw a conclusion about whether Trump had obstructed justice during the investigation; instead, Barr said he and his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, concluded based on the evidence Mueller gathered that the president had not.
Trump, who has endorsed the release of Mueller’s report, appeared more cautious in recent days. He told reporters Tuesday that Democrats would never be satisfied by Mueller’s conclusion that the investigation did not establish a conspiracy involving his campaign, calling it “politics at a very low level.”
“Anything you give them, it will never be enough,” Trump said.
Barr has told lawmakers that he and other Justice Department officials are examining the nearly 400-page report, plus tables and appendices, to remove grand jury evidence, intelligence material, evidence that could affect other cases and information that could infringe on the privacy of people who weren’t charged. Barr said he expected to give Congress his redacted version of the report by mid-April.
Nadler said he would not issue the subpoenas to Barr immediately but instead “will give him time to change his mind” on releasing grand jury material. He said he expected to subpoena the report “in very short order.”
Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the committee, said Democrats set an arbitrary deadline to receive the Mueller report from Barr and then demanded material that the law does not allow to be shared outside the Justice Department.
“In the face of laws and rules he finds inconvenient, the chairman demands our nation’s top law enforcement official break the law instead of supporting him in enforcing it,” Collins said.
The meeting began testily, with Collins forcing Nadler to have his amended resolution read for the committee. “I really wish we could work on big issues rather than on this circus of undermining the president of the United States,” said Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz.