![]() ![]() ![]() “Why are we here? It seems to me we’re here because the Mueller report wasn’t what the Democrat thought it would be,” wondered Rep. Republicans repeatedly indicated that Mueller’s report found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and made no conclusion on obstruction of justice, prompting sharp rejoinders from Democrats who noted none of them had seen the report yet. Let Bob Mueller come and let’s ask Bob Mueller whether he thinks the report that he created should be disclosed without considerations of classified national security information or without redactions for grand jury information.” But Ratcliffe said if the committee intends to issue subpoenas, “Let’s issue one for Bob Mueller. We shouldn’t be issuing subpoenas today,” Rep. Nadler indicated he intends to do that but wants the committee to issue a subpoena first. Some Republicans urged Nadler to go to court and ask a judge to lift the restriction on sharing grand jury material. Though Nadler was a harsh critic of Starr at the time, he emphasized Wednesday that Starr provided Congress voluminous material that Barr now proposes to redact. Nadler repeatedly invoked the investigation of President Bill Clinton by former independent counsel Ken Starr as an example of why Mueller’s report should be released. He called the effort “political theater” intended to get reporters to write about subpoenas for close aides to the president. “In the face of laws and rules he finds inconvenient, the chairman asks our nation’s top law enforcement officer to break the rules and the law.”Ĭollins also suggested that some of the Trump aides who Democrats authorized subpoenas for have indicated a willingness to cooperate. “As much as the chairman and I may want to view this material. Doug Collins(R-Ga.) of Georgia, the ranking Republican on the panel, said Democrats are asking Barr to violate laws and regulations to reveal redacted information. Republicans on the Judiciary Committee ripped the subpoena effort as a partisan push to attack the president. House Democrats rejected that offer as insufficient and demanded he testify immediately. He also offered to testify before Congress in early May. In a recent letter to lawmakers, Barr said he intends to provide the redacted version of the report to Congress by “mid-April. They note that Republicans received material in all fourcategories when they demanded documents from the Justice Department over the pst two years. Barr has indicated he intends to redact classified information, grand jury testimony, material relevant to ongoing investigations and “reputational” information that could be harmful to “peripheral third parties.”ĭemocrats have argued that Congress should have access to all of the information even if it is blacked out of the version of the report Barr makes public. The authorization for subpoenas puts Congress on aggressive footing while Barr reviews Mueller’s report and redacts several categories of information. The party-line committee vote authorized Nadler to issue subpoenas to five former senior aides to President Donald Trump as part of a broad obstruction of justice and corruption probe, including former chief of staff Reince Priebus, former adviser Steve Bannon, former White House counsel Don McGahn, McGahn’s former deputy Ann Donaldson and former communications director Hope Hicks. “If that doesn’t work out, in a very short order, we’ll issue the subpoenas,” Nadler said. ![]()
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