The measure is nonbinding but it reflects Democrats’ efforts to encourage the Justice Department to disclose the special counsel’s findings to the public in some form. | Alex Wong/Getty Images Congress House Dems to bring resolution next week to make Mueller report public

House Democrats are fast-tracking a resolution aimed at putting pressure on Justice Department officials to make special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report available to Congress and to the public.

The House Rules Committee will consider the resolution on Monday, bypassing the House Judiciary Committee and setting up a quick vote on the floor. The measure is nonbinding but it reflects Democrats’ efforts to encourage the Justice Department to disclose Mueller’s highly anticipated findings to the public in some form.


Democrats were alarmed when Attorney General William Barr, during his Senate confirmation hearings, would not commit to making Mueller’s full report public. They have since wrestled with the best way to ensure that the special counsel’s findings are made available to the public, with appropriate redactions for classified information and grand jury material.

The resolution cites the “overwhelming public interest” in Mueller’s findings as a reason for full transparency. Mueller is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and related matters, including possible obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump.

Lawmakers said such a measure, though simply symbolic, would send a message to the Justice Department. A vote on the resolution would also put Republicans on the spot, though many GOP leaders — who have insisted that there was no collusion between Trump associates and Russian operatives — have already embraced Democrats’ calls to make the report public.

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The chairs of six House committees wrote a letter to Barr last month urging him to release the report “without delay and to the maximum extent permitted by law.”

The Democratic committee chairs said that given longstanding DOJ policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted, Congress and the public should be informed of any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Trump so that lawmakers can hold the president accountable — a thinly veiled reference to impeachment.

“To maintain that a sitting president cannot be indicted, and then to withhold evidence of wrongdoing from Congress because the president will not be charged, is to convert Department policy into the means for a cover-up,” they wrote. “The president is not above the law.”

House Democrats had other options when it comes to addressing the issue. Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced a bill in January that would require a full release of the Mueller report, but that legislation has stalled.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) have threatened to issue a subpoena for the report if Barr does not authorize it to be released publicly or to Congress. The chairmen have also said they would invite Mueller himself to testify before their committees.

