Trump in Florida as Washington waits on tenterhooks for news of special counsel’s findings

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The US attorney general, William Barr, delivered a summary of Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election on Sunday afternoon, according to congressional sources speaking to the Guardian. The summary comes amid growing and bipartisan calls for the full document to be released to the public.

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Robert Mueller, the special counsel, delivered his report on his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election to the Department of Justice on Friday. Barr committed to releasing a summary of the report to Congress as early as this weekend.

Sources have indicated Mueller has brought no more charges in relation to his investigation, which has resulted in 37 indictments or guilty pleas including some of Donald Trump’s closest former advisers. But the broader conclusions remain unknown and it falls to Barr, in office just over a month, to decide how the report will be presented to the public.

On Sunday, Democrats and Republicans renewed calls for Barr to release the full report.

The New York Democrat Jerrold Nadler, chair of the House judiciary committee, told CNN’s State of the Union it was “crucial” the report and its underlying evidence be made public.

“Transparency is key here,” Nadler said, vowing to use subpoena powers should the full documents not be made available. He indicated he would be willing to take the case to the supreme court.

“We will try to negotiate,” he said, “and we will try everything else first. But if we have to, yes, we will certainly issue subpoenas to get that information.”

Nadler indicated he would not allow the justice department more than a few weeks to release the documents. The House has already passed a resolution urging Barr to make the report public, although the move was blocked by Republicans in the Senate.



Nonetheless, senior Republican senators joined a growing chorus for public release. The Texas Republican Ted Cruz backed the calls without going as far as to say underlying documents should be public.

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“I think the report needs to be made public,” he told CNN, “it needs to be released to the Congress and it needs to be released to the American people. This has consumed two years of the American people’s time and we need full transparency.”

The Florida Republican Marco Rubio also voiced support for a full release and indicated he was supportive of underlying evidence being made available. Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press, he said he would urge the White House not to invoke executive privilege to block parts of the report being published.

“I would certainly ask the president to lean towards transparency,” Rubio said.

Trump has remained circumspect since Friday, when he travelled to his club in south Florida for a weekend of golf.

On Friday night Trump briefly addressed a Republican gathering at Mar-a-Lago but he did not mention Mueller or his work, until now the subject of countless tweets, complaints and defiant statements. The president’s Twitter account remained unusually dormant for more than a day until brief tweets on Sunday morning wished his followers “a great day” and declaimed: “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

On Sunday, as the president arrived at the Trump International Golf Club, the White House reiterated that it had not yet been briefed on Mueller’s report.

On Saturday Trump teed off with the rock-rap musician Kid Rock, who tweeted a photograph showing the musician in a pair of stars-and-stripes trousers and the president in a red cap with “USA” emblazoned on the front.

Kid Rock (@KidRock) Another great day on the links! Thank you to POTUS for having me and to EVERYONE at Trump International for being so wonderful. What a great man, so down to earth and so fun to be with!! KEEP AMERICA GREAT!! -Kid Rock pic.twitter.com/cSsswI5PbW

Barr was pictured leaving his home in Virginia on Sunday morning as another full day of work was expected at the justice department in Washington. The attorney general was working with Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who appointed Mueller as special counsel, to produce the summary.

Rosenstein was involved in the firing of the former FBI director James Comey, who Mueller replaced at the head of the investigation, writing a memo cited by Trump when he removed Comey from office.

The fired FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe has alleged Rosenstein said the president ordered him to do so, bolstering arguments Trump’s actions were an obstruction of justice. The circumstances of Comey’s removal are expected to be a central focus of Mueller’s work. Trump admitted to NBC in May 2017 he was prompted to fire Comey over “this Russia thing”.

Barr will have to balance the extraordinary public interest in the case with the protocol of refraining from releasing negative information about people who have not been charged.

Democrats have cited recent examples of the justice department breaking disclosure norms, most prominently during the Hillary Clinton email investigation, to argue they are entitled to the entire report and its underlying evidence. The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, on Saturday said Barr’s offer to provide a summary of principal conclusions was “insufficient” and promised to reject any classified briefing.

Justice department opinions hold that sitting presidents may not be indicted but Democrats argue Trump should not be immune.

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Trump faces a separate justice department investigation in New York examining payments to two women who say they had sex with him years before the election. The president has been implicated in potential campaign finance violations by his former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, who says Trump asked him to arrange the payments.

Federal prosecutors, also in New York, have been investigating foreign contributions to the president’s inaugural committee.

Trump refused to testify in person during the Mueller inquiry, instead he submitted answers in writing.

Mueller charged 34 people, including the former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and three Russian business entities. Close adviser Roger Stone is awaiting trial on charges he lied to Congress and engaged in witness tampering.

On Saturday Peter Carr, spokesman for the special counsel, said the case of former Trump aide Rick Gates will be handed off to the US attorney for the District of Columbia. Court papers show he continues to help with several federal investigations.