Asked Friday about news that special counsel Robert Mueller’s report was submitted and no more indictments were coming down pike, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) said that wasn’t the end of the story.
“There may be conduct that was criminal but not sufficiently provable or there may be a broader body of conduct that is deeply compromising to national security but not a criminal matter,” Schiff told CNN.
Like many other congressional Democrats, Schiff called for the full report to be made public and for the underlying evidence to be made available for review.
Attorney General Bill Barr sent Washington, D.C. scrambling on Friday afternoon with the announcement that the Mueller report had come to a close. In a letter to the chairs of the congressional judiciary committees, Barr said he would consult with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosensein and Mueller to determine “what other information can be released to Congress and the public consistent with the law.”
Democrats say they want nothing less than the full story of what Mueller found in his 675-day-long investigation, even if they have to subpoena the special counsel or Barr to provide testimony.
“If there’s evidence of a compromise, whether it arises to criminal conduct or not, it needs to be exposed,” Schiff said.
“If necessary, we will call Bob Mueller or others before our committee,” he added. “I would imagine that the Judiciary Committee may call the attorney general before its committee if necessary.”
Schiff said it would be a “horrendous double standard” not to provide a full account of the evidence, since the Justice Department agreed to turn over some 880,000 pages of discovery to Congress in the investigation over Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.
“If there’s evidence of a compromise, whether it arises to criminal conduct or not, it needs to be exposed,” Schiff said.
So comprise can be a high crime or misdemeanor? No way GOP will agree to this.
Not that I disagree with you about what the GOP will or won’t agree to, but “high crimes” is pretty commonly misunderstood. The “high” part isn’t referring to serious or particularly terrible crimes, but crimes from a high place:
So the top elected official being compromised would definitely qualify. Now, whether the GOP would ever agree to that is another matter of course, basically at this point they’ll defend Trump no matter what. For now at least.
No, can’t be.
Barr, being a good friend of Mueller, was playing eleventy-dimensional chess.
You know how House always said “It’s never lupus”? It’s never eleventy-dimensional chess, either.
It seems blindingly obvious to me at this point that the strategy is that Trump says fine, show everyone the report, I don’t mind, then has agreed with Barr that he’ll say here are a few lines, sorry can’t show the rest, then Trump says “Well I wanted it all released, can’t blame me!”
It’s a standard MO for him, announcing that he’s happy to release his tax returns at the right time then later saying well they advised me not to, what can I do. Lots of other examples also.