Updated at 11:39 p.m.
Vermont’s congressional delegation isn’t going to settle for a four-page summary.
Responding Sunday to the release of the topline findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of President Donald Trump, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) called for the public release of Mueller’s full report.
“I don’t want a summary of the report,” Sanders said during a presidential campaign rally in San Francisco. “I want the whole damn report, because nobody, especially this president, is above the law.”
Two days after Mueller closed his 22-month probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Attorney General William Barr summarized Mueller’s findings in a four-page letter to Congress. According to the AG, Mueller found no evidence that Trump’s campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government to swing the election.
As to whether Trump obstructed justice, Barr wrote that Mueller “did not draw a conclusion — one way or the other.” He quoted Mueller as saying that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” Barr added that, after reviewing the report, he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had determined that Trump had not obstructed justice.
In a statement issued later Sunday, Leahy expressed incredulity that “after only 48 hours to review [Mueller’s report] and without the benefit of an interview with the president,” Barr had concluded that Trump had committed no crimes.
“I forcefully urge Attorney General Barr — in the interests of the integrity of the Justice Department, in the interests of the American people, in the interest of the rule of law — to publicly release the full Mueller report,” Leahy wrote. “Any attempt to hide swaths of the Mueller report from public scrutiny will only fuel suspicions that President Trump’s Justice Department, which represents the United States, is playing the role of President Trump’s defense team. We all deserve better.”
Welch was out of state and unavailable for an interview Sunday, according to spokesperson Kate Hamilton. She said in a written statement that he agreed that the full report should be made public “so that Congress and the American people can assess the merits of the conclusions reached by both the Special Counsel and the Attorney General.”
If Barr refuses to do so, Hamilton wrote, Welch “will advocate for Congress to secure it by subpoena.”
Earlier Sunday, Leahy told reporters at Burlington International Airport that he was returning to Washington, D.C., for a meeting with Department of Justice officials. He said he would urge them to make the report public. “The American people paid for it,” he said. “The American people should see it.”
Barr “refused to commit to releasing the report” during his confirmation hearing last month, Leahy wrote in a Washington Post op-ed published Friday. And Barr, in a letter Friday to congressional leaders, would only say he was “committed to as much transparency as possible.”
Barr wrote that he would determine what to release to Congress and the public “consistent with the law, including the Special Counsel regulations and the Department’s long-standing practices and policies.”
Those caveats, Leahy said, “give me pause” because they could be used by the department to justify withholding information from the public inappropriately. Doing so would be a “bad, bad mistake,” the Vermont senator added.
The most senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee expected a detailed briefing on Mueller’s findings Sunday evening. He said he planned to press officials for more than just the “principal conclusions” of the report Barr referenced in his letter.
“I expect a lot more than conclusions. The conclusions they could put on a post card. I want to see a lot more than that,” Leahy said.
The Sunday evening briefing could be followed by a classified briefing Monday morning. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has rejected talk of classified briefings as a way to keep information in the Mueller report secret. But if one were held, Leahy said he would attend and make the case that only legitimately classified material — such as investigatory methods or information provided by foreign governments — should be withheld from the public version of the report.
“I have a feeling there is going to be very, very little that is going to be classified,” Leahy said.
The former state’s attorney in Chittenden County said it is common for prosecutors in complex investigations to file certain charges but not others, despite additional evidence of wrongdoing. If Mueller is called before Congress to testify, which Leahy said is possible, he’d likely pursue such a line of inquiry.
“I’d like to ask him. ‘Were there things that you left out of the indictments that you might have put in?’” he said.
Leahy spent his weeklong break from Congress at his home in Middlesex but also attended a number of events around the state, including a visit to the Statehouse. Everyone he met was in agreement on the report, Leahy said.
“I’ve talked with hundreds of Vermonters just this week alone all over the state. They are all saying basically the same thing: ‘Let us know what’s going on,’” Leahy said. “And I agree with them.”
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What actually happened with RussiaGate? A cabal of government officials colluded with the Hillary Clinton campaign to interfere in the 2016 election and, failing to achieve their desired outcome, engineered a two-years-plus formal inquisition to deflect attention from their own misconduct and attempt to overthrow the election result.
The Cable News characters, quite a few of them lawyers, were litigating the living shit out of the story on Sunday night in their usual spirit of obdurate rank dishonesty. For instance, Jeffrey Toobin, who plays Attorney General on CNN, went off on the infamous 2016 Trump Tower Meeting in which the presidents son, Donald, Jr., met with Russian lawyer Natalia V. Veselnitskaya. Toobin omitted to mention that Ms. Veselnitskaya was, at that very time, on the payroll of Fusion GPS, Hillary Clintons oppo research contractor. In other words, Trump Junior was set up.
That was characteristic of the collusion that actually occurred between the Hillary campaign, the FBI, the DOJ, the CIA, the NSA, the UKs MI6 intel agency, and the Obama White House, striving to prevent the election of a TV reality show star, and to disable him afterwards also of the news medias role in the whole interminable scam of RussiaGate. Their fury and despair were as vivid the night of March 24, 2019, as on November 8, 2016. And now they will attempt to spark off a sequel.
Come on, Dems, demand it all, and declassify, and the whole OIG report. There is more than enough in them to hang the Obamas, Hillary, Comey, etc., the real traitors.
Okay, you brave soldiers of truth. Go ahead and demand that full report which Barr has already said he intends to release. In fact, he said so twice, once before he received it. Thats really taking a stand there; you are like three Spartacuses.
God, cant Vermonts delegates do anything but make pointless proclamations and express indignity at the plight of illegal immigrants?
My point is she lost. The national popular vote is meaningless, and wasn’t even tracked until recently.
50 states held elections. She lost the majority.
If Trump wins the national popular vote in 2020, VT will be giving it’s 3 electoral votes to him.
I don’t think anyone there would like that when Trump only carries 15% of the VT vote
Roy, my man, you gotta lighten up.
It’s been my experience, as an Independent, that Conservatives view Liberals as merely misguided while Liberals view Conservatives as evil and a scourge on society.
Lets take a break on the sweeping generalizations and find some common ground, eh?
My, my, my…it’s been my experience (as an independent) that conservatives view liberals as misguided while liberals see conservatives as evil and a scourge on mankind.
You’ve proven my point.
The truth of the matter here is that the vast majority of Republicans couldn’t care less about how morally bankrupt, dishonest and totally lacking in integrity Trump is, or whether or not he is, in fact, a criminal. Republicans/Conservatives are all driven by nothing more than hate and greed and as long as Trump is willing to try and deliver on the Republican’s hate filled agenda Republicans are all in for Trump. Its disgusting but it is what it is. They truly are deplorable.
“lied about Bengazi”
False
“ignored the electoral college process”
She did not “ignore” the EC process. She lost and accepted the result, even though it did not reflect the national popular vote. Unlike Trump, who repeatedly declared AHEAD of time that if he didn’t win it was because the system was rigged. That was false and foolish.
“she clearly violated security with her own email server and then made it sound like it was no big deal.”
You mean like Jared & Ivanka?
By the way, Hillary did lose because of misogyny, no matter how much you deny it.
Here’s a thought for our congressional delegation: instead of blowing off about the Mueller Report 24/7, how about taking a moment to let us know what legislation you’re working on or have passed that actually improves the lives of the American people (remember us?).
knowyouras…
Do not try to find more excuses and try to say the reason so many do not like Hillary is because of misogyny it is because of the way she lied about Bengazi, how she acted like she was the heir to the presidency, how she ignored the electoral college process, how she clearly violated security with her own email server and then made it sound like it was no big deal. She lost the popular vote in over 50% of the states so the electoral college did what it was supposed to, allow for those states to be heard over the 5 or 6 main population centers.