Demand full report by next week

Democrats demand Mueller’s full report by next week

House Democrats hinted they’d issue a subpoena to the attorney general to get the report.

By ANDREW DESIDERIO, SARAH FERRIS and HEATHER CAYGLE

House Democrats intensified their efforts to obtain Robert Mueller’s full report on Monday, as the party sought to recast its investigative strategy after the special counsel did not implicate President Donald Trump in a crime.

Top Democrats demanded that Attorney General William Barr turn over the report by April 2, while Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee strongly hinted that they were prepared to issue a subpoena if Barr doesn’t hand over the full report by next Tuesday.

In a letter to Barr, the leaders of six key House committees said the attorney general’s four-page summary of Mueller’s findings was “not sufficient,” arguing that Congress must obtain all of the underlying evidence from the Mueller probe because the special counsel declined to make a determination on whether Trump obstructed justice.

“I believe that what Mueller was saying by not making a finding with regard to obstruction was that he wanted the Congress to take a look at it, and we make the decision,” House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) told reporters.

Democrats were left trying to pick up the pieces on Monday after Barr said Mueller could not establish that the Trump campaign conspired with Russians in 2016, while Republicans went on the offensive, claiming vindication for their longstanding view that Trump-Russia collusion was a farce.

Barr wrote in a four-page memo to congressional leaders on Sunday that after viewing the evidence Mueller gathered, he found “no actions” on the president’s part that “constitute obstructive conduct.”

Multiple Democrats, including key chairmen, are vowing to press ahead with expansive probes into Trump — with some lawmakers seizing on a singular line from Mueller’s report, as relayed by Barr on Sunday: “While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

“Right there in black and white, we have the special prosecutor saying, he might have committed a crime,” Rep. Gerry Connolly said Monday. “Wouldn't you want to know a lot about that, versus declaring, this is over, let’s move on?”

“It’s not a norm that American presidential campaigns consult with Russians and it shouldn't be, and yet we know 17 officials did, on 100 occasions, and lied about it. So, there’s still plenty to look at,” the Virginia Democrat added.

Top Democrats left a weekly meeting in Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office on Monday night determined to avoid political distractions as they entered a packed legislative week. Democrats emerged saying they would not pull back from their oversight duties but would also not stray from their core agenda, with key legislative priorities on deck.

But the release of key findings in Mueller’s report sparked a postponement this week of the House Intelligence Committee’s scheduled public interview with the head negotiator for the Trump Tower Moscow project, Felix Sater.

Still, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and his team have already reached out to the Justice Department to schedule a date for Barr to testify before the panel, according to a person familiar with the matter. The committee could also call Mueller himself to testify.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will also seek Barr’s testimony, Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Monday.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said that she would prefer the Justice Department address the question of obstruction in a closed setting with senators — a prospect Pelosi has rejected, arguing that the Justice Department would hide behind such a briefing in order to keep Mueller’s underlying findings secret.

“It would be helpful if the attorney general and the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, who’s been really the central player in this long saga, testified in closed session on the obstruction issue on how they reached their decision. In Judiciary or perhaps in the SCIF, if we could get senators to not leak,” Collins said.

But many Democrats also acknowledged that they must proceed cautiously, after the initial description of the Mueller report failed to live up to the hype that some of their own members had helped fuel.

Without proof of criminal misconduct, many Democrats — including dozens of moderate freshmen — will be anxious to retrain attention on the party’s legislative agenda. This week, the House will vote on measures to condemn Trump’s transgender troop ban, as well as legislation to tackle the gender pay gap. Democrats will also vote to override Trump’s veto on legislation terminating his authority to declare a national emergency to build a border wall.

Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas) said in an interview that he hopes Democrats — particularly those on the left who have been demanding impeachment for months — hit the pause button while lawmakers try to learn the full scope of Mueller’s probe and its findings.

“This is something that obviously, had the wrong decision been made, it could’ve threatened our majority,” Veasey said, commending Pelosi and other Democratic leaders’ decision not to prematurely pursue impeachment before the Mueller investigation concluded.

“We live in such a different time now, a time where people want instant gratification because of social media… The fact of the matter is it would’ve been easy to try and quench the thirst of all of the people that are on Twitter, on social media,” he said.

Democrats also noted on Monday that Barr wrote a lengthy memo last year — before Trump appointed him to lead the Justice Department — arguing that a sitting president could not obstruct justice.

“We need to know why he came up with the conclusion that there was no obstruction. But again, I will remind you, he came to that conclusion over a year ago,” Bass said.

Meanwhile, some Democrats were eager to focus on Mueller’s central conclusion — which has been sometimes disputed by the president — that Russia interfered in the 2016 election through the use of cyberattacks and social media disinformation campaigns.

“I hope that if you put the criminal conspiracy part aside, even Republicans will say, yeah, it’s time to do something,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said. “Mueller’s done a real service to this country for exposing this, and that’s really what we should act on.”