Nadler says Congress "entitled to see all" of Mueller report, vows court fight for grand jury testimony
New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, the Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Congress is "entitled to see all" of special counsel Robert Mueller's report, doubling down on his demand that the Justice Department provide his committee with the findings of the nearly two-year Russia investigation with no redactions.
"Congress has a right to the entire report with no redactions whatsoever so we can see what's there," Nadler said on "Face the Nation" Sunday. "We're entitled to see it because Congress represents the nation. And Congress has to take action on any of it. So we're entitled to see all of it."
Nadler said he would go to court to obtain secret grand jury testimony that might be included in the unredacted report.
"We would have to go the court to get the release of the grand jury information but that has happened successfully in every previous situation," Nadler said. "And it's not up to the attorney general to decide with respect to that or with respect to other material that he decides Congress can't see."
- Transcript: Rep. Jerry Nadler on "Face the Nation," April 7, 2019
- The key findings from the Justice Department summary of Mueller's report
To bolster his argument for the full release of Mueller's report and the investigation's underlying evidence, Nadler cited recent reporting by The New York Times and Washington Post that some of Mueller's investigators disagree with the how Barr characterized their probe in his four-page letter.
"We're hearing leaks that Barr misrepresented in his so-called summary letter what's in the report; that he sugar coated it, that he made it look more favorable for the president than it was," he said.
The New York Democrat also denounced Attorney General William Barr, who authored the four-page summary of Mueller's 400-page report, as a "bias defender" and "agent" of the White House.
"I dismiss what he said," Nadler said, referring to Barr. "He's a biased defender of the administration and he's entitled to be defending the administration but he is not entitled to withhold the evidence from Congress."
The special counsel, according to Barr's summary, concluded the Trump campaign did not conspire or coordinate with the Russian government in Moscow's interference campaign during the 2016 presidential election. Three weeks before submitting his report, Mueller informed the Justice Department he wouldn't be able to reach a conclusion on his probe into whether Mr. Trump committed obstruction of justice, a source familiar with the situation told CBS News.
Barr said he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein determined Mueller's findings were not "sufficient" to prove Mr. Trump committed obstruction of justice. Nevertheless, Barr outlined is his summary that the special counsel stopped short of exonerating the president. "While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him," Mueller's report read, according to Barr's summary.
Nadler said the full disclosure of the findings of Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in U.S. elections and possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Moscow is necessary for the American public to judge Mr. Trump's conduct — whether it amounts to impeachable offenses or not.
"There could be things the American people ought to know," he said. "You know, you can commit shameful acts, you can commit complete betrayals of the public interest without committing impeachable acts."