US | Democrats vote to demand Mueller’s full report, setting up clash

House Democrats voted yesterday to authorize a subpoena demanding that Attorney General William Barr turn over Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s full Russia report and all the evidence behind it, potentially touching off a legal clash that could reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The Constitution charges Congress with holding the president accountable for alleged official misconduct,” Democratic Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York said before the 24-17 vote along party lines in the Judiciary Committee that he heads. “Congress is entitled to all of the evidence.”

A deal could still be negotiated between Democrats and Barr before the committee issues such a subpoena. “I will give him time to change his mind,” Nadler said. “But if we cannot reach accommodation, then we will have no choice but to issue subpoenas.”

The attorney general has pledged to provide Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, and any links to President Donald Trump or those around him, by mid-April. But he has indicated that he’ll omit sections from its more than 400 pages that deal with classified information and grand jury proceedings.

Republicans have said Democrats are flailing to keep alive their inquiries into Trump even though Barr already has said Mueller didn’t find that the president or those around him conspired in Russia’s election meddling.

Representative Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the Judiciary panel, said Democrats are “desperately searching for something on the president.”

Trump has tweeted that Democrats “have become totally unhinged and would like to go through the whole process again.”

According to a summary by Barr, though, Mueller didn’t exonerate Trump on the question of whether he obstructed the investigation, finding evidence “on both sides of the question.” Nonetheless, Barr said that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded that the evidence didn’t establish obstruction.

Nadler said that “we have reason to suspect this administration’s motives. The Mueller report probably isn’t the ‘total exoneration’ the president claims it to be.” He said “it is our job, not the attorney general’s, to determine whether or not President Trump has abused his office.”

But Republican John Ratcliff of Texas, a former U.S. attorney, asked, “Where in the special counsel regulation does it say the attorney general must turn over an unredacted, full special counsel report? The special counsel regulation doesn’t say that. No law says that.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said on MSNBC that “it’s inevitable that Bob Mueller is going to have to testify before Congress.”

The Judiciary Committee’s hearing on a subpoena is part of a concerted push by Democrats who now control the House to move forward with investigations of Trump on many fronts.

On Tuesday, the House Oversight and Reform Committee served subpoenas in two inquiries: whether the White House improperly granted top-secret clearances over the objections of civil service workers, and whether Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross gave inaccurate testimony on the motives for placing a question about citizenship on the 2020 census.

The resolution approved by the Judiciary Committee also authorizes subpoenas for documents from former White House Counsel Don McGahn, former White House strategist Steve Bannon, former communications director Hope Hicks, former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and former White House aide Ann Donaldson.

The Democrats’ insistence that Congress has a right to all of Mueller’s findings and evidence may be challenged on several legal grounds. The Justice Department regulation providing for special counsels requires that the attorney general inform Congress only of any action taken to block a special counsel from pursuing evidence, which Barr has said wasn’t the case with Mueller.

While Barr has indicated that he isn’t giving the White House an advance look at Mueller’s report, the attorney general or the president’s lawyers could assert that some information in it must be redacted to protect executive privilege.

Barr also told lawmakers in a letter last Friday that he may black out information that would be damaging to “peripheral” figures in the Mueller probe, a description that presumably wouldn’t apply to the president or his top aides.

Some House Republicans – who pushed successfully last year for Justice Department and FBI documents that they said showed anti-Trump bias in the Justice Department and FBI – have acknowledged that they set a precedent for full disclosure of Mueller’s findings now. Billy House, Bloomberg