House Judiciary Committee to subpoena Mueller Report and witnesses (updated)

Today is the deadline congressional committees have set for Attorney General William Barr to produce the full unredacted Mueller Report to congressional committees.

Barr will certainly not comply with congressional demands. As Michael Bryan pointed out in his post about our constitutional crisis, Barr keeps adding categories of information he intends to redact from the report before turning it over to congress in mid-April.

First of all, Mueller’s report almost certainly identified any grand jury testimony (likely kept to a minimum to allow for public disclosure), and any classified national security information. There almost certainly is an ASCII electronic version of the report that would sort this information instantly. It’s not like Barr has to go through the report line by line with a highligher for redactions.

As for any grand jury testimony, Barr should have already motioned Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court to approve release of grand jury evidence to Congress, subject to in camera inspection and maintaining secrecy during ongoing grand jury proceedings, which appears to be the case. Press group asks judge to lift grand jury secrecy in Mueller report. “Federal court rules covering grand jury secrecy allow disclosure of counterintelligence-related information to officials with intelligence-related duties and permit even broader disclosure in connection with judicial proceedings.”

It does not appear that Barr has motioned the court for release of the grand jury information, or that he has any intention of doing so.

There are also annexes of classified information to the Mueller Report where this information is typically segregated. The Intelligence committees routinely review classified information. Barr has no authority to redact classified information to the appropriate congressional Intelligence committees.

Second of all, there is precedent for previous special counsel reports being submitted to Congress in full, i.e., Watergate, Iran-Contra, and Whitewater, for example.

There is simply no legitimate reason for Barr’s delaying release of the Mueller report to Congress.

As a result, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler says “hold my beer,” America Is Done Waiting for the Mueller Report:

Last Sunday, Attorney General William Barr sent us a letter summarizing what he says are the “principal conclusions” of the special counsel, Robert Mueller. The next day, together with five other committee chairmen, I wrote back to the attorney general, demanding that he provide us with the full Mueller report — not a summary, but the full report and all of the relevant evidence — by April 2.

For nearly two years, the country has waited to read the report. Over those many months, President Trump has raged against the institutions that make our democracy possible — among them, the free press, the courts and his own Department of Justice. When the special counsel indicted members of the president’s inner circle, his attacks got louder.

Before the formal investigation began, Mr. Trump fired his F.B.I. director. He later fired his attorney general. He reportedly attempted to fire the special counsel himself. Despite this profoundly unacceptable behavior, the special counsel persevered and wrote his report.

We — the members of the Judiciary Committee, the House of Representatives and the entire American public — are still waiting to see that report. We will not wait much longer. We have an obligation to read the full report, and the Department of Justice has an obligation to provide it, in its entirely, without delay. If the department is unwilling to produce the full report voluntarily, then we will do everything in our power to secure it for ourselves.

The entire reason for appointing the special counsel was to protect the investigation from political influence. By offering us his version of events in lieu of the report, the attorney general, a recent political appointee, undermines the work and the integrity of his department. He also denies the public the transparency it deserves. We require the full report — the special counsel’s words, not the attorney general’s summary or a redacted version.

We require the report, first, because Congress, not the attorney general, has a duty under the Constitution to determine whether wrongdoing has occurred. The special counsel declined to make a “traditional prosecutorial judgment” on the question of obstruction, but it is not the attorney general’s job to step in and substitute his judgment for the special counsel’s.

That responsibility falls to Congress — and specifically to the House Judiciary Committee — as it has in every similar investigation in modern history. The attorney general’s recent proposal to redact the special counsel’s report before we receive it is unprecedented. We require the evidence, not whatever remains after the report has been filtered by the president’s political appointee.

On its face, the attorney general’s letter raises more questions than it answers. He tells us, for instance, that he declined to charge the president with obstruction in part because there was no underlying crime to obstruct.

Did he discuss that conclusion with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — who, while a federal prosecutor, routinely charged individuals with obstruction without charging the underlying crime? Did the attorney general forget that the special counsel indicted 37 other people, including the president’s campaign chairman, deputy campaign chairman and former national security adviser, for various crimes, including conspiracy against the United States? Did he lose track of his own prosecutors, who effectively named the president as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Southern District of New York?

Second, we require the report because Congress has a role that is fundamentally different from that of the Department of Justice. The special counsel’s mandate was narrow: investigate allegedly criminal conduct stemming from links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Our job is to hold the president accountable any time he undermines the rule of law, and is not limited to his involvement with the Russian government during the campaign.

Whether or not the president could have been charged with a crime, even the attorney general acknowledges the existence of evidence that has so far been hidden from view. We have every reason to suspect that the unedited obstruction section of the Mueller report resembles the report that Congress received from the Watergate grand jury in 1974. That evidence showed that President Richard Nixon had attempted to obstruct justice. It did not recommend that the president should be prosecuted. It did not say the president should be impeached. It simply stated the evidence so that Congress could do its job.

Finally, we require the report because one day, one way or another, the country will move on from President Trump. We must make it harder for future presidents to behave this way. We need a full accounting of the president’s actions to do that work.

When the full scope of the president’s misconduct has been revealed, when his lies are debunked and his abuses have been laid bare, I believe that members of Congress on both sides of the aisle will draft legislation to curb the worst of his offenses. Put another way: If President Trump’s behavior wasn’t criminal, then perhaps it should have been.

The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a vote on Wednesday to authorize a subpoena that Democrats will use to try to force the Justice Department to hand over an unredacted copy of the special counsel’s report and underlying evidence. Seeking Full Mueller Report, House Democrats Prepare to Vote on Subpoena:

The move on Monday by Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the committee’s chairman, made clear that Democrats are not satisfied with Attorney General William P. Barr’s assurances on Friday that he will produce a full, albeit redacted, copy of the nearly 400-page report to Congress by mid-April.

“As I have made clear, Congress requires the full and complete special counsel report, without redactions, as well as access to the underlying evidence,” Mr. Nadler said in a statement. “The attorney general should reconsider so that we can work together to ensure the maximum transparency of this important report to both Congress and the American people.”

* * *

Democrats control the Judiciary Committee by a sizable margin and most likely will not need Republican [Trump enablers] support to approve the subpoena. If approved, it would be up to Mr. Nadler to determine when and if to issue it — effectively increasing pressure on Mr. Barr to meet Democrats’ demands.

Serve it today would be my response.

In addition to authorizing a subpoena for the Mueller report, the Judiciary Committee will vote on Wednesday on subpoenas for five key witnesses in its investigation into possible obstruction of justice, abuse of power and corruption within the Trump administration.

The individuals are Donald F. McGahn II, a former White House counsel who spoke extensively with Mr. Mueller’s investigators; Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s former chief strategist; Hope Hicks, a former White House communications director; Reince Priebus, the president’s first chief of staff; and Annie Donaldson, a deputy of Mr. McGahn who took detailed notes on the president’s behavior during key episodes in his administration.

The five were among 81 individuals, companies and government entities from which the committee requested documents last month to kick-start its investigation. Mr. Nadler said he would not have to use the subpoenas if the witnesses changed course and complied voluntarily.

It’s time to end the Barr coverup and get on to the oversight work that Congress has an obligation to perform.

UPDATE: Boom! goes the dynamite. House panel votes to authorize subpoenas to obtain full Mueller report:

The House Judiciary Committee voted 24-17 along party lines to authorize its chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), to subpoena the report and underlying documents of Mueller’s probe from Attorney General William P. Barr.

“This committee has a job to do,” Nadler said. “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.”

Chairman Nadler is not expected to issue a subpoena immediately, giving Barr a few days to comply with Democrats’ requests.