Schiff says he will have Mueller testify if his report is not made public



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By Allan Smith

The Speaker of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, said that he had a plan if the full report of Special Advocate Robert Mueller was not made public. .

And that includes bringing Mueller himself before his committee.

On Sunday, Schiff, a California Democrat, was asked about "This Weekend" on ABC about what Democrats would do if Attorney General William Barr decided to keep the long-awaited report in silence.

"Well, we will obviously summon the report, we will bring Bob Mueller to Congress, we will sue him if necessary," said Schiff. "And in the end, I think the department understands that they're going to have to make it public, and I think Barr will understand that as well."

Schiff said that if Barr, who had recently been appointed Attorney General, was trying to "withhold, try to bury part of this report, it would be his legacy, and it would be a tarnished legacy".

"So I think the pressure will be immense not only on the ministry, but also on the Attorney General," he said.

It was widely reported last week that Mueller's report could be submitted to Barr in a few days. But on Friday, new reports suggest the report should not be delivered by the end of the week. In December, NBC News announced that it could be submitted by mid-February.

Towards the end of last week, several House Democratic Committee presidents sent a letter to Barr in which he stated "with the utmost firmness, our expectation that the Department of Justice will make public the report of the Department of Justice." Mueller special advocate whom you submit – without delay and to the fullest extent permitted by law. "

Addressing reporters last week, President Donald Trump said he had not spoken to Barr about the Mueller report.

Schiff promised Sunday that his committee would "get to the bottom of things", adding that "if the president is serious about all his demands for exemption, then he should welcome the publication of this report".

Mueller was hired as a special advisor after Trump was sacked by FBI President James Comey in May 2017 to take over the FBI's investigation into Russia's interference in the United States. Election of 2016 and determine if the members of the Trump campaign had collaborated with the Russian authorities. The investigation was later expanded to indicate whether Trump had prevented justice in the investigation of Russia from taking measures such as his dismissal from Comey.

Several partners and former Trump campaign leaders have been indicted or sentenced as part of the investigation, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and Trump's longtime advisor, Roger Stone. In a separate investigation stemming from Mueller's work, Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was convicted of a series of crimes, including violations of campaign funding for having paid hidden sums to two women just before the 2016 presidential election to silence them about the presumed past. business with Trump.

Until now, Mueller has not accused any Trump associate of crimes related to direct collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Trump has repeatedly called the survey "witch hunt".

Asked about what should be expected from Mueller's report, former FBI interim director Andrew McCabe – another frequent target of Trump attacks – told "This Week" on Sunday. "I think most of what you can expect from Robert Mueller is an honest and independent assessment, how much detail he chooses to present to the Department of Justice is a great question." I hope they're looking at the details, it is not a normal investigation, nor any evaluation.I think the Ministry, the Congress and the public have every interest in discovering exactly what they they learnt. "

In calling for the release of the entire report, Democratic representative Jim Himes of Connecticut said on "Meet the Press" on NBC that "everything about" the Mueller probe "has become political", and that the only "way to end this is for the truth of being there."

"The question of Russian interference and the possibility of collusion between the president and his people have turned our politics into something unrecognizable in the last two years, including the behavior on the part of the president – attacking the FBI, striker Bob Mueller, "said Himes, a member of the House's Intelligence Committee.

In an interview with CBS News, Steve Bannon, former chief strategist at the White House, said that 2019 "would be pretty vitriolic" in American politics, which would be "triggered by the publication of the Mueller report in the coming weeks. "

Bannon said he expected the report to contain "very little collusion on Russia".

"I think the bulk of the report will be an obstruction of justice," he said. "And as I said, it depends on your decision as to the authority of the President of the United States to make some of those decisions. I have a lot of respect for Bob Mueller." as I see how this report it turns out that. "

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