House Judiciary Committee Votes to Subpoena Mueller Report By Mairead McArdle
The House Judiciary Committee Wednesday approved subpoenas demanding that the Justice Department provide Congress with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s full, final report on the results of the his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The Committee voted 24 to 17 in favor of a resolution that authorizes subpoenas for the unredacted version of the special counsel’s report, all accompanying exhibits and attachments, and the evidence Mueller used to write it.
Attorney General William Barr submitted a four-page summary of the almost-400-page report to Congress last week and promised in a meeting with the House and Senate Judiciary Committees on Friday to release a redacted version of the full report by “mid April, if not sooner.” Barr’s summary said Mueller did not find any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin but did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice during the investigation.
House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.) said that Barr is “refusing” to cooperate with him in legally obtaining certain materials but added, “I will give him time to change his mind” before issuing the subpoenas.
“The Constitution charges Congress with holding the president accountable for alleged official misconduct. That job requires us to evaluate the evidence for ourselves — not the attorney general’s summary, not a substantially redacted synopsis, but the full report and the underlying evidence,” Nadler said. “But if we cannot reach an accommodation then we will have no choice but to issue subpoenas for these materials. And if the Department still refuses, then it should be up to a judge, not the president and not his political appointee, to decide whether the Committee can review the complete record.”
Barr sent a letter to Nadler and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham on Friday saying the version of the report he planned to send them would be free of classified information. The attorney general and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein are currently in the process of redacting such information from the report.
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