A Top Democrat Just Threatened to Subpoena the Mueller Report “If Necessary”

“We will bring Bob Mueller to testify before Congress. We will take it to court, if necessary.”

Susan Walsh/AP

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On ABC’s This Week, House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Sunday that if the results of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election aren’t released to the public, he and his colleagues will use subpoena power and pursue legal options to bring it to daylight.

“We will obviously subpoena the report. We will bring Bob Mueller to testify before Congress. We will take it to court, if necessary, and in the end I think the department understands they’re gonna have to make this public,” Schiff told host George Stephanopolous.

“I think [Attorney General William] Barr will ultimately understand that, as wellā€¦if he were to try to withholdā€”to try to bury any part of this reportā€”that will be his legacy, and it will be a tarnished legacy. So I think there will be immense pressure not only on the department but on the attorney general to be forthcoming.”

Since the probe was launched in 2017, the prospect of a final, definitive “Mueller Report” has loomed over the American political scene like a storm cloud at a barbecue. But as Mother Jones‘ David Corn reported last month, there’s a real possibility thatā€”unlike, say, the Starr Reportā€”Mueller’s findings won’t be released at all:

The Justice Department guidelines governing the work of a special counsel do not compel Mueller to compile such a report. They only include one sentence about a report: ā€œAt the conclusion of the Special Counselā€™s work, he or she shall provide the Attorney General with a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the Special Counsel.ā€

In other words, what gets released might be up to Barr. That’s why Schiff and his allies are mulling over their next stepsā€”and hoping they won’t have to take them.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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