President Donald Trump attends a White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council meeting on Thursday. Earlier on Twitter, Trump said congressional Democrats are subjecting him to “the highest level of Presidential Harassment in the history of our Country!”

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump said Thursday that congressional Democrats are subjecting him to the "highest level of Presidential Harassment" in the nation's history.

His comment, posted on Twitter, comes amid a push by House Democrats to obtain six years of Trump's personal and business tax returns as well as the full report of special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Trump has previously said he has no objection to making the full Mueller report public, but he has seemed less committed to that aim after reports that members of Mueller's team think the findings are more damaging to him than suggested in a four-page summary released by Attorney General William Barr.

"There is nothing we can ever give to the Democrats that will make them happy," Trump wrote on Twitter. "This is the highest level of Presidential Harassment in the history of our Country!"

In a separate tweet, Trump said that "few people seem to care" about the Russia investigation and complained that some Democrats are "fighting hard to keep the Witch Hunt alive."

"They should focus on legislation or, even better, an investigation of how the ridiculous Collusion Delusion got started -- so illegal!" Trump wrote.

The House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines Wednesday to authorize issuing a subpoena for the Mueller report and underlying documents from Barr.

In a March 24 letter to Congress, Barr said the special counsel did not establish a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. And he said that Mueller did not reach a conclusion "one way or the other" as to whether Trump's conduct in office constituted obstruction of justice.

Absent such a determination, Barr told lawmakers that he concluded the evidence was not sufficient to prove that the president obstructed justice.

The New York Times and Washington Post reported Wednesday that members of Mueller's team have complained to close associates that the evidence they gathered on obstruction was alarming and significant.

On Thursday, the Justice Department defended Barr's handling of the special counsel report, saying that it had to be scrubbed of sensitive information.

"Given the extraordinary public interest in the matter, the attorney general decided to release the report's bottom-line findings and his conclusions immediately -- without attempting to summarize the report -- with the understanding that the report itself would be released after the redaction process," a Justice Department spokesman, Kerri Kupec, said in a statement.

The statement also said that every page of Mueller's report was marked that it may contain grand jury material "and therefore could not immediately be released."

Some of Mueller's investigators have told associates in recent days that Barr could have released more of their own work, government officials and others familiar with their frustrations said.

Trump attacked the Times article, saying on Twitter that reporters relied on "no legitimate sources."

Barr has told lawmakers that his letter was an update of his progress in reviewing the report and that the document was not intended to fulfill a requirement under Justice Department regulations that he send a summary to Congress at the end of any special counsel investigation. Though Kupec said Barr was not trying to summarize the report, she was referring only to the regulatory requirement for a summary.

Kupec also said that the report and its release were subject to the regulations, which stipulate that Mueller prepare a confidential document of his findings intended only for the attorney general. Barr and other law enforcement officials are reviewing the document for classified material, information about continuing investigations and derogatory details about third parties not directly related to the inquiry.

The attorney general has said he is aiming to send to lawmakers a redacted version of the report by mid-April. Under the regulations, he is free to release parts or all of it if he decides it is in the public interest.

Democratic Congressman Jerrold Nadler said Thursday that the reports about frustration among members of the special counsel team would not alter his plan to give Barr a bit more time to hand over the report voluntarily before issuing a subpoena.

"It is his duty to release the entire report," Nadler said of Barr. "We were demanding he do so, and he hasn't done so."

But given the frustrations expressed by some of Mueller's investigators, Nadler asked Barr in a letter Thursday to turn over all communications between the special counsel's office and other Justice Department officials about the report, including discussions about the disclosure of the report to Congress or the public and about Barr's March 24 letter.

Nadler also said that Barr had undermined his own desire to release the report all at once when he outlined the principal conclusions "in a fashion that appears to minimize the implications of the report as to the president."

And Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Thursday that he would ask the Senate to pass a resolution calling for the Justice Department to provide transparency on the results of the special counsel's work.

But Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters Thursday that he had no interest in "retrying" the Mueller investigation and trusted Barr to fairly present its findings.

"I don't think Barr misrepresented the Mueller conclusions," Graham said. "I don't have any interest in taking all the work product and re-litigating it. That's enough for me."

TRUMP'S TAX RETURNS

Meanwhile, Trump suggested Wednesday that he is not inclined to cooperate with an effort by the House Ways and Means Committee to secure his tax returns, which Democrats think can shed light on numerous aspects of Trump's business dealings.

Committee chairman Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., gave the IRS until next Wednesday to respond to its request for the returns. The panel's chairman was able to make the request because of a 1924 law that gives the chairmen of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee broad powers to request and receive the tax returns of any American.

Trump broke with precedent when, first as a presidential candidate and then after he was elected, he refused to release his tax returns, contrary to the practice of every president since Richard Nixon. The explanation he gave was that he was being audited, although numerous experts have said that an audit would not have prevented him from releasing his returns.

At an event at the White House on Wednesday after Neal issued his request, Trump repeated the same explanation.

"We are under audit, despite what people said, and working that out -- I'm always under audit, it seems, but I've been under audit for many years because the numbers are big, and I guess when you have a name, you're audited," Trump said. "But until such time as I'm not under audit, I would not be inclined to do it."

During an appearance Thursday morning on Fox News' Fox & Friends, White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders pointed to Trump's remarks Wednesday when asked whether Trump intends to let his returns become public.

Sanders said that Democrats' continuing scrutiny of Trump shows they are "sore losers" and "a sad excuse for a political party."

Information for this article was contributed by John Wagner, Ellen Nakashima and Erica Werner of The Washington Post; by Katie Benner of The New York Times; and by Eric Tucker of The Associated Press.

A Section on 04/05/2019