Democrats will have to work much harder to justify continued investigations into President Trump and the White House now that special counsel Robert Mueller has completed his probe, according to a senior administration official.
“The bar for that justification has increased manifold,” the official told the Washington Examiner Tuesday.
The official noted that White House Counsel Pat Cipollone has already rebuffed repeated requests by House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., for documents pertaining to the White House’s security clearance process.
Cipollone’s refusal to cooperate with Cummings could be indicative of the White House’s future handling of congressional requests, according to the official.
“If past is prologue, and even before the Mueller conclusions, the White House counsel showed a reluctance to just roll over and forward documents absent a compelling reason. These are congressional fishing expeditions,” the official said. “Where’s your justification?”
Several congressional House panels, including the Oversight, Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Financial Services committees, are conducting their own investigations into Trump on a wide array of topics, from his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin to his financial ties to Deutsche Bank. The House Judiciary Committee, led by Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler is investigating possible abuses of power, corruption, and obstruction of justice, and the House Ways and Means Committee is reportedly preparing to request the president’s tax returns.
Mueller submitted his report to Attorney General William Barr last Friday. The report concluded that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the run-up to the 2016 election but stopped short of making a determination on possible obstruction of justice.
“The findings of the Department of Justice are a total and complete exoneration of the President of the United States,” said press secretary Sarah Sanders on Sunday.
White House counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway said Tuesday that Americans will see continued congressional investigations into President Trump as partisan and politically motivated compared to the Mueller investigation, which will be viewed as “the gold standard” of investigations.
“Director Mueller worked in quiet for nearly two years, with ample time, resources, and reach, to have eliminated many possibilities, including, but not limited to, collusion, and has put a lot of hours and money into it. And everything that comes after that will be seen through a hyper-partisan lens,” Conway told the Examiner.
Democrats in Congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have vowed to continue investigating the president even though Mueller has wrapped up his probe. They have also called on Barr to release the Mueller report in its entirety.
“Congress requires the full report and the underlying documents so that the Committees can proceed with their independent work, including oversight and legislating to address any issues the Mueller report may raise,” Pelosi and Schumer said in a joint statement.
But the White House has maintained that there is nothing left to investigate.
“The Mueller investigation is seen as trying to get the truth,” Conway said. “The politicized investigations in Congress could be seen as trying to get the president.”
