Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are pouncing on a GOP-led resolution calling for the release of sensitive information related to alleged events that unfolded at the start of the Russia investigation, calling on Republicans to also join them in getting the full special counsel’s report.
Ranking member Doug Collins (R-Ga.) introduced a resolution last Monday, ahead of the summary of the Mueller report becoming public, seeking details surrounding allegations Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein discussed wearing a wire to record conversations with President Trump and if there were serious conversations about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe kept memos of these events, accounts that Rosenstein has denied.{mosads}
Democrats jumped to support Collins’s resolution during a markup hearing, stating that they, too, want more transparency regarding special counsel Robert Mueller’s 22-month probe.
”After two years of refusing to join Democrats in our efforts to conduct oversight over the Trump administration, Republicans have now introduced this resolution of inquiry seeking information about certain events in the early days of the Trump presidency,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said in his opening remarks, stating that he welcomes his colleague’s “newfound interest in transparency and oversight.”
”That is why I hope and expect that the ranking member will join me in seeking special counsel Robert Mueller’s complete report, as well as all of the underlying evidence he has compiled, as many of the questions raised by this resolution are the same questions we hope Attorney General Barr will answer in the coming days,” he continued.
Other Democrats also cheekily announced during the markup that they support Collins’s pursuit of such information.
“With this resolution of inquiry, ranking member Collins is demanding documents from the Justice Department related to an obstruction of justice or counterintelligence investigations against the president,” Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) said during the markup. “I support these requests and I hope my Republican colleagues will go even further in getting full transparency from the Department of Justice.”
“I’m proud to join our Republican ranking member in this bipartisan call for transparency,” Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) later added.
Throughout the markup, Collins and other Republicans blasted their Democratic colleagues for refusing to accept Mueller’s conclusion that there is no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.
“My Democrat friends — who so often boast of their esteem for civil liberties — have only doubled down on their efforts to pursue this misguided quest against the current president,” Collins said in his opening remarks.
“Those officials inappropriately targeted American citizens, and Democrats are crestfallen those abuses didn’t bear fruit for impeachment instead of being shaken by the abuse itself,” he continued.
Other Republicans echoed Collins, raising their concerns about an anti-Trump bias by top officials at the FBI and Justice Department.
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) pointed to what he described as federal investigators misleading a surveillance court in order to wiretap Trump campaign officials during the election, an allegation of abuse that multiple GOP lawmakers have echoed over the past two years.
Mueller, however, did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice, which led Attorney General William Barr and Rosenstein to weigh in that the findings from the investigation did not meet the threshold for such a case.
Democrats seized on the involvement of Barr, a Trump appointee, as further reason to receive the full report as well as the underlying evidence of the Mueller probe, arguing that such information is necessary so Congress can be fully informed.
The resolution will head to the House floor for a vote, where it is expected to pass.