Politics

Nadler Schedules Vote To Subpoena Entire Mueller Report

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The House Judiciary Committee will vote Wednesday on whether to subpoena the full Mueller report and all of its underlying documents, committee chairman Jerry Nadler said Monday.

House Democrats had set an April 2 deadline for Attorney General William Barr to provide the report to Congress. Barr responded to the demand on Friday, telling lawmakers that he plans to send a version of the Mueller report to lawmakers in mid-April, if not sooner.

He said that he is working with special counsel Robert Mueller on redactions in the report for grand jury information, classified information and materials that would “unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties.”

Democrats, led by Nadler, are pushing back against the redactions, saying that the full report should be made public. He has called on Barr to ask a federal judge to relax restrictions on publishing grand jury materials.

“The full and complete report must be released to Congress without delay,” said Nadler, who also plans to issue subpoenas for five former White House officials: Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, Don McGahn, Ann Donaldson and Hope Hicks.

It is unclear how the Justice Department will respond to a congressional subpoena for the report, though a legal battle is likely.

According to a letter that Barr sent Congress on March 24, Mueller was unable to establish that the Trump campaign conspired or colluded with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election.

Mueller also declined to issue additional indictments prior to ending his investigation, which began on May 17, 2017. Mueller obtained thirty-four indictments or guilty pleas during the 22-month probe, but none for election-related conspiracies involving Trump associates.

Georgia GOP Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the Judiciary panel, responded to Nadler’s proposed vote, accusing Democrats of “misrepresenting” what the Justice Department is required to provide Congress under the laws governing special counsels.

“Judiciary Democrats have escalated from setting arbitrary deadlines to demanding unredacted material that Congress does not, in truth, require and that the law does not allow to be shared outside the Justice Department,” said Collins.

“It’s unfortunate that a body meant to uphold the law has grown so desperate that it’s patently misrepresenting the law, even as the attorney general has already demonstrated transparency above and beyond what is required.”

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