House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., subpoenaed the Justice Department on Friday for the full version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
Nadler said the Justice Department must comply with the subpoena by May 1.
“The redactions appear to be significant. We have so far seen none of the actual evidence that the Special Counsel developed to make this case,” he said in a statement. “Even the redacted version of the report outlines serious instances of wrongdoing by President Trump and some of his closest associates. It now falls to Congress to determine the full scope of that alleged misconduct and to decide what steps we must take going forward.”
Nadler’s panel voted this month to give itself the authority to compel the Justice Department and Attorney General William Barr to turn over the documents after it became clear Barr intended to provide Congress only a partial version of Mueller’s findings by mid-April. Nadler said then that he would hold off using the subpoena, however, to allow the attorney general “time to change his mind” about the decision.
But on Thursday, Nadler said he had still not heard from Justice Department officials about arrangements to see a copy of Mueller report with fewer redactions and that a subpoena would be forthcoming. His comments led Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd to send a letter informing Nadler that he and certain other lawmakers would have the chance to view the documents in a secure reading room within the department.
Nadler on Friday added that he believed President Trump had committed obstruction of justice with his efforts to thwart the federal Russia investigation.
“But it’s not up to me,” Nadler told George Stephanopoulos in an interview Thursday on Good Morning America. “We’re not there. … Because Barr misled the country, we have to hear from Barr, which we will on May 2. We have to hear from Mueller, ask him a lot of questions. We have to hold hearings and hear from other people.”
Nadler’s Republican counterpart on the committee, Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., decried the subpoena for being “wildly overbroad.” He said that Nadler was demanding information that would be “plainly against the law to share,” including records uncovered by a grand jury that is still impaneled.
[Read more: 10 times Trump might have obstructed justice]
