Former White House counsel Don McGahn will be called to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said Sunday.
McGahn’s appearance would help the panel understand whether President Trump obstructed justice when he asked McGahn to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, a request the ex-White House counsel refused to carry out, Nadler said during an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
He said testimony from McGahn is critical after Attorney General William Barr presented Mueller’s report to the public in his four-page summary and press conference prior to the redacted release of the special counsel’s findings.
“The key is Barr clearly misled the American people on both obstruction of justice … and we can’t charge him because the Justice Department won’t let us charge him,” Nadler said, referring to internal guidelines that suggest a sitting president cannot be indicted or criminally prosecuted. “And let me just say, we have to get, some of this is why we have to hear from Barr, why we have to hear from Mueller, we have to hear from other people like Don McGahn, who we’re going to call. We have to get the entire report, including the redacted materials, so we can evaluate it and so the American people can know what was going on and can make judgments.”
Earlier this month the House Judiciary Committee authorized itself to subpoena McGahn for testimony and documents he sent to Mueller.
Nadler also said his panel would not embark on official impeachment proceedings until they parsed “through all the evidence, all the information we can get.”
“We’re going to see where the facts lead us,” he said.
