WASHINGTON — A House committee authorized subpoenas for special counsel Robert Mueller's full report on his Russia investigation.
- House Judiciary Committee authorizes subpoenas for the Mueller report
- Wants exhibits and underlying materials, along with the final report
- Attorney General says redacted version should be ready in mid-April
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The House Judiciary Committee voted 24-17 to give Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., permission to issue subpoenas to the Justice Department for the final report, exhibits and any underlying evidence or materials prepared for Mueller's investigation. Nadler has not yet said if he'll send the subpoenas.
“The committee is entitled and must see all of the material and make judgments as to what can be redacted for the public release by ourselves," said Nadler, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
House Democrats had given Attorney General William Barr until Tuesday to produce the full report to Congress. The Justice Department ignored that deadline, with Barr telling committee chairmen last week that a redacted version of the full 300-page report would be released by mid-April, "if not sooner."
Barr said in his letter to the House and Senate Judiciary committee chairmen that he wants Congress and the public to be able to read Mueller's findings. He also said there are no plans to submit the report to the White House for a review on whether to assert executive privilege over parts of the report.
Barr said Mueller is helping the Justice Dept. identify which sections of the public version of the report should be redacted, including grand jury material, information that would compromise sensitive sources or affect ongoing investigations.
But Nadler, in his opening statement before the committee Wednesday, insinuated the Trump administration had a vested interest in keeping parts of the report from Congress, and likened the action to ones the Nixon Administration took during the Watergate investigation.
"We have reason to suspect this administration's motives," Nadler said. "The Mueller Report probably isn't the "total exoneration" the president claims it to be. And in any event the committee has a job to do. 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."
“We are not asking the Attorney General to release it to the public at this time, we are asking him to release it to members of Congress who have every right to provide oversight over the executive branch of government to see the report,” Demings said, who is a member of the powerful Judiciary and Intelligence committees in the House.
The committee also approved subpoenas for five former White House aides who Democrats say are relevant to an investigation into possible obstruction of justice and possible corruption within the Trump Administration.
“We are particularly interested in knowing the whole story. We are glad that there are people who have either been part of the administration or currently part of the administration who are willing to cooperate and come in and answer our questions,” Demings explained.
Republicans are dismissing the effort as political games.
“I think it’s a phishing expedition and an attempt to undermine the President ahead of the 2020 elections,” said Rep. Ross Spano (R-Florida) 15th District.
Spano believes the law is on the attorney general’s side.
“You can’t release classified information. I want it to come out, but I’m convinced we have to follow the law,” he said.
President Trump is still touting vindication, but he’s now backing off his initial call for the entire report to be released, arguing Democrats will never be satisfied.
“I will tell you, anything we give them will never be enough,” he said in the Oval Office Tuesday to reporters.
Democrats are waiting to hear from the Justice Department to find out whether they will comply with the request. It’s still unclear when the House Judiciary Committee plans to serve those subpoenas.