Democrats Decline to View Less Redacted Mueller Report

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and other top Democrats declined Friday to view a less redacted Mueller report.

Top Democrats responded to a proposal from Attorney General (AG) William Barr to view a less redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report that confirmed President Donald Trump did not collude with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential election.

In the wake of the Mueller report’s release, Pelosi and Schumer said that Mueller needs to testify before Congress. House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nalder (D-NY) said that Mueller should testify before his committee because they “clearly cannot believe” what Barr tells us about the Mueller report.

NEWS: The six Congressional Democrats invited by DOJ to view a less-redacted version of the Mueller report have DECLINED the offer —> pic.twitter.com/ZHBOs1kS3X

— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) April 19, 2019

The top Democrats include:

• Pelosi
• Schumer
• Nadler
• House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA)
• Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), ranking member of the Judiciary Committee
• Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee

Rather than accept Barr’s proposal to view the Mueller report, they insisted that they have access to redacted material and “access to grand jury material.”

However, Barr redacted four categories of material, including material presented to a federal grand jury, sources or methods gathered by intelligence agencies that would damage national security, material that would impair ongoing court cases or ongoing DOJ investigations, and material that would impact the privacy or ongoing reputations of innocent third parties.

Federal law mandates that grand jury testimony remain confidential, meaning that the DOJ would likely be barred from revealing this information to Pelosi and the other Democrats.

The Democrat brass suggested that they need the full Mueller report and “underlying evidence” to fulfill its “constitutional responsibilities.”

The Democrats also suggested that they might need to consider legislation “in light of the findings contained in Special Counsel Mueller’s report and the Attorney General’s determination that no prosecution is warranted despite those facts.”

“While the current proposal is not workable, we are open to discussing a reasonable accommodation with the Department that would protect law enforcement sensitive information while allowing Congress to fulfill its constitutional duties,” the Democrats added.