Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA), the top Republican on the House Judiciary, on Monday urged Democrats to call special counsel Robert Mueller to testify about the contents of his 400-page report.
“If you seek both transparency and for the American public to learn the full contours of the Special Counsel’s investigation, public testimony from Special Counsel Mueller himself is undoubtedly the best way to accomplish this goal,” Collins wrote in a letter to committee chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY).
The committee voted on party lines last week to authorize a subpoena to Justice Department for the full report, including secret grand jury testimony. But Collins argued that doing so would force Attorney General Bill Barr to violate the law against releasing these materials. As he noted, a D.C. Appeals Court affirmed last week that federal law allows for only five narrow exemptions to make this confidential available to Congress. One of these exemptions is when a request is made to a court as part of a formal impeachment inquiry.
If Democrats don’t wish to take that route, Collins said, Mueller himself would be best equipped to testify about his findings. The Georgia Republican said that Mueller should come the last week of April, when the House is on recess.
“I think we can agree this business is too important to wait, and Members of the Committee will surely return to Washington at such a critical moment in our country’s history,” he said.
Barr has promised to release a redacted version of the report by mid-April.
Democrats can cite no precedent for their demands for grand jury information from the #MuellerReport, but there’s a solution we should all be able to agree on: The Judiciary Committee should invite the Special Counsel to testify immediately. pic.twitter.com/TgofQhAb9D
— Rep. Doug Collins (@RepDougCollins) April 8, 2019
