Top Judiciary Democrat Says He Wants Barr to Explain Conclusions

(Bloomberg) -- The Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said he’ll summon Attorney General William Barr before the panel to explain “concerning discrepancies” in the Justice Department’s decision not to pursue obstruction charges against President Donald Trump.

Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York said he wants to know why Barr concluded there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prosecute Trump while Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report said the investigation did “not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” according to Barr’s letter to Congress summarizing the findings.

“Given what Barr found on obstruction of justice, I think all of us should be very concerned about the even-handedness,” Nadler said on MSNBC. “The American public needs to know how exactly did he conclude there is no obstruction of justice.”

Nadler wrote earlier on Twitter that “we will be calling Attorney General Barr in to testify before @HouseJudiciary in the near future.”

Barr on Sunday delivered a four-page summary of Mueller’s report, which came after a 22-month investigation into whether Trump or any member of his campaign conspired with a Russian government effort to interfere with the 2016 election. Mueller also examined whether Trump took actions to obstruct Justice.

Unresolved Question

“The report found evidence on both sides of the question” on obstruction and “leaves unresolved what the special counsel views as difficult issues of law,” Barr wrote in a letter to Congress. Barr quoted Mueller’s report as saying, “While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

Barr wrote that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded that the evidence developed by Mueller’s investigation “is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”

Democrats are demanding release of the full Mueller report.

Nadler’s committee is one of several in the Democratic-controlled House that are undertaking investigations into the Trump administration from his 2016 campaign through his first two years in office. Nadler has asked for documents from 81 individuals, agencies and entities, including the president’s son Donald Trump Jr., Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, and other associates of the president.

Trump and his allies said the Mueller report exonerates the president of all the allegations that have been swirling around presidency. The top Republican on the House Judiciary, Representative Doug Collins of Georgia, said Nadler needs “to rethink his sprawling investigation, which retreads ground already covered by the special counsel and is already a matter of public record.”

“I hope he recognizes that what may be political fodder for Democrats may not be good for the county,” Collins said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Lee Spears in New York at lspears3@bloomberg.net;Miles Weiss in Washington at mweiss@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, John Harney

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