[V]ermont’s congressional delegation is demanding the release of the full Mueller report, following Attorney General William Barr’s letter to congressional leaders summarizing its findings.
Barr wrote that Mueller did not find that President Donald Trump’s campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in the Kremlin’s reported efforts to influence the 2016 election.
Mueller did not draw a conclusion one way or the other on whether Trump had obstructed justice. Mueller wrote that “while this report does not conclude the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
Barr said that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded that the evidence provided by Mueller was not sufficient to establish that Trump had obstructed justice.
Vermont Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders and Rep. Peter Welch — all Democrats — have since called for the release of the full report.
Welch, who is on the House Intelligence Committee, told VTDigger Monday that he believed the American people deserved to see the full report, adding that he does not take Barr’s word on what it contains.
“There’s an enormous amount of already proven misconduct of people close to the president, and people are entitled to know what happened and how it happened,” he said.
Welch said Congress would subpoena the report if necessary, but that he hoped Barr would release the report soon to avoid what would then likely become a long, drawn-out legal process.
Leahy said in a statement Sunday that transparency is a “touchstone of our democracy” and that the full report should be publicly released.
“Any attempt to hide swaths of the Mueller report from public scrutiny will only fuel suspicions that President Trump’s Justice Department, which represents the United States, is playing the role of President Trump’s defense team,” Leahy said. “We all deserve better.”
Sanders echoed Leahy’s sentiment.
“I don’t want a summary of the Mueller report,” he tweeted Sunday. “I want the whole damn report.”
News outlets and political pundits have been fixated on Mueller’s two-year long investigation into Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 election, whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia and whether Trump obstructed justice. Opponents of the president hoped it would be the first step in his impeachment.
After Barr’s summary was released Sunday, Trump declared vindication.
“No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION. KEEP AMERICA GREAT!” he tweeted.
No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION. KEEP AMERICA GREAT!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2019
While Trump celebrated, Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement that Trump’s declaration “directly contradicts the words of Mr. Mueller and is not to be taken with any degree of credibility.”
It’s unclear how much of the full report Barr will release to the public. In his Sunday letter, the attorney general wrote that the report contains some material that is before a grand jury and legally must remain confidential.
Barr wrote that the schedule for processing the report depends on how quickly the Department of Justice can identify which material can not become public. But he said he understood the public interest in the report.
“For that reason, my goal and intent is to release as much of the Special Counsel’s report as I can consistent with applicable law, regulations and Departmental policies,” Barr wrote.
Welch said he had great confidence in Mueller to do a complete investigation, and that he will accept Mueller’s finding that there was no active collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
On the question of obstruction, however, Welch said that he couldn’t come to any conclusion without seeing the full report, since Mueller stated his findings don’t exonerate the president.
In his statement, Leahy, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, expressed appreciation to Mueller for his work and said that the 37 indictments that came from his investigation made it one of the most “productive and consequential” special counsel investigations in U.S. history.
“He apparently did not recommend that anyone within the Trump campaign be charged with conspiracy or other crimes related to the Russian attack, but based on his 37 indictments and public reporting alone, we already know there was an extraordinary amount of misconduct that reached the highest levels of the campaign,” Leahy said.
Among those indicted were Paul Manafort, who was the chairman of the Trump campaign; Michael Flynn, who was Trump’s national security advisor; former aide Roger Stone and Michael Cohen, who was Trump’s personal lawyer.
Manafort and Cohen have been sentenced to prison time, while Flynn is awaiting sentencing and Stone is awaiting trial.
Investigations of Trump and his family business continue in a number of jurisdictions across the country, most prominently in the Southern District of New York in Manhattan. The House Judiciary Committee is also investigating Trump.
Welch said the House would continued its investigations into Russia interference, focusing on what the Russians did, how they did it and how the U.S. can prevent it from happening again.
“It’s beyond dispute the Russians interfered in our election,” he said.
Trump should not attempt to restrict Barr from releasing the full report, Leahy wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post on Friday.
Leahy drew parallels between Mueller’s investigation and the Watergate scandal which engulfed Richard Nixon’s presidency. He wrote that in both cases, a politically motivated theft lead to investigations which the president referred to as a “witch hunt.”
He said both Nixon and Trump fired the lead investigators, sparking obstruction of justice concerns, and that the investigation lead to indictments of top aides.
“I believe it would be a grave mistake for the president to follow in the footsteps of Nixon and seek to hide the truth from both Congress and the American people,” Leahy wrote. “Nixon fought the release of his secret White House recordings all the way to our highest court. He lost. If Trump attempts to hide the Mueller report, I believe he will lose, too.”
Welch said the most important next step is to receive the report and continue oversight. But he said it was also important for House Democrats to continue to pursue their legislative agenda.
“We’ve got to be doing things that are good for the American people, whether they live in a district that voted for Hillary or Trump,” he said.
