The Latest: Romney 'sickened' by White House 'dishonesty'
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on congressional reaction to special counsel Robert Mueller’s report (all times local):
5:15 p.m.
The Justice Department says the subpoena issued by House Democrats for the full special counsel report is unnecessary.
Justice Department spokesperson Kerri Kupec says Attorney General William Barr released the report with “minimal redactions.”
Kupec says the department is working with Congress to view more of the report and the subpoena issued Friday by Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is “premature and unnecessary.”
The department offered Friday to have a select group of congressional leaders view some of the redacted information from the report. But Democrats rejected that offer as insufficient.
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5 p.m.
Top congressional Democrats are rejecting a Justice Department offer to let 12 leading lawmakers see a more complete version of the special counsel’s report because they say the suggested ground rules are too limiting.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and four other leading Democrats said in a letter Friday that lawmakers must see Robert Mueller’s entire report so Congress can “fulfill its constitutional responsibilities.” They offered to negotiate a workable agreement.
The Justice Department is offering to let the legislators see much of the information that was redacted in the report released Thursday. It says only information censored because it pertains to grand jury proceedings would still be withheld.
The department said lawmakers could view the less-censored version at the agency and would have to pledge to keep the information confidential.
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4:30 p.m.
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney says he’s “sickened” by the level of dishonesty the special counsel found in President Donald Trump’s administration.
Romney also said Friday he was “appalled” that, according to special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings, Americans working on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign welcomed election help from Russia.
The one-time GOP presidential nominee tweeted that it’s “good news” Trump was not charged with wrongdoing in the investigation.
But Romney, who’s now a senator from Utah, was critical of what he called the “pervasiveness of dishonesty and misdirection” at the highest levels of the administration, “including the president.”
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9:45 a.m.
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has issued a subpoena for special counsel Robert Mueller’s report as Congress escalates its investigation of President Donald Trump.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York say, “It now falls to Congress to determine the full scope of that alleged misconduct and to decide what steps we must take going forward.”
He expects the Justice Department to comply by May 1.
While Mueller declined to prosecute Trump on obstruction of justice, he did not exonerate the president, all but leaving the question to Congress.
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