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New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/nadler-calls-doj-incredibly-arrogant-for-trying-to-limit-muellers-testimony/

Nadler calls DOJ 'incredibly arrogant' for trying to limit Mueller's testimony

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House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler on Tuesday blasted President Donald Trump’s Justice Department as “incredibly arrogant” for instructing Robert Mueller to limit the scope of his upcoming congressional testimony.

But the New York Democrat predicted that the Justice Department’s Monday directive would not affect Wednesday’s highly anticipated pair of hearings with the former special counsel.

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“I don’t think it’s much of an impediment, simply because Bob Mueller had indicated repeatedly that he was going to do exactly that,” Nadler said on CNN. “I think it’s incredibly arrogant of the department to try to instruct him as to what to say. It’s a part of the ongoing cover-up by the administration to keep information away from the American people, but I think that it’s not going to have a real impact.”

Mueller has stated that his 448-page report “is my testimony” and that he does not intend to speak about topics that were not already made public, presenting Democrats with a challenge when Mueller testifies before the House Judiciary and Intelligence panels.

And on Monday, the Justice Department told Mueller that his testimony “must remain within the boundaries of your public report” because the president has asserted executive privilege over the investigation’s underlying evidence, POLITICO first reported.

Nadler said on Tuesday that Democratic lawmakers have “been operating under the assumption that he’ll do essentially what he said — he’ll stay more or less within the bounds of the report.” But the chairman also said Mueller “does not have to comply” with the Justice Department’s directives.

“He doesn’t work for them,” Nadler said, “and that letter asks things that are beyond the power of the agency to ask even if he still worked for them.”

Despite the Justice Department’s letter to Mueller, it is unlikely that the department will insist on having a lawyer in the room during Mueller’s testimony to lodge objections to certain questions — essentially relying on Mueller to self-police his remarks. Mueller is known to strictly adhere to Justice Department guidelines, and Democrats do not expect him to deviate from that posture.

In May, Trump asserted executive privilege over Mueller’s entire report and underlying materials. The move came after the Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena for the unredacted report and all evidence underpinning it, and the Justice Department’s defiance of that subpoena led the panel to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress.

Democrats are eager to ask Mueller several questions about his investigation and his legal conclusions, including whether he would have charged Trump with obstruction of justice if he were not the president — a reference to Justice Department policy that prohibits the indictment of a sitting president. While Mueller is unlikely to answer that question directly, Democrats say there are other ways to illuminate Mueller’s decision not to formally accuse the president of committing a crime.

The Judiciary Committee is expected to focus on five specific episodes of potential obstruction of justice — ones that, according to Mueller, met all three elements required for an obstruction charge.

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/these-3-lawmakers-know-the-secrets-in-muellers-report/

These 3 lawmakers know the secrets in Mueller's report

Reps. Val Demings (shown), Eric Swalwell and John Ratcliffe sit on both the Intelligence and Judiciary committees, and so they have access to evidence that underpins both volumes of Mueller’s report | Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images

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They’ve got special access because they sit on both the Intelligence and Judiciary committees.

The fate of Donald Trump’s presidency may hinge on Congress’ handling of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report — yet just three rank-and-file members of the House are allowed to view Mueller’s confidential files.

Reps. Val Demings (D-Fla.), Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) are the only members of the 435-member House that sit on both the Intelligence and Judiciary committees, and so they have access to evidence that underpins both volumes of Mueller’s report — the one on contacts between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign that the Intelligence panel is reviewing, and the one on Trump’s efforts to interfere with the investigation that Judiciary panel is exploring.

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As lawmakers deal with the fallout of one of the most consequential investigations in a generation, these three lawmakers remain the highest-ranking elected officials with access to both sets of evidence — a result of complex and confrontational negotiations between Democrats and the Trump administration — which could help determine whether lawmakers move forward with an impeachment inquiry against Trump. (Like all other lawmakers, they are unable to view grand-jury evidence, which by law cannot be disclosed.)

“We started off wanting every member of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, to be able to review the Mueller report and all supporting materials,” Demings said in an interview. “That’s what we wanted because we have to make some critical decisions moving forward, whether it’s to begin an impeachment inquiry or just continue the investigations. We are not able to do that as of yet.”

For Democrats, the limited access is a far cry from their demands that all 535 members of Congress receive access to Mueller’s complete report and underlying evidence. But it’s an arrangement that House leaders have reluctantly agreed to as they wrestle with a growing faction of Democrats — almost one-third of the caucus — demanding impeachment proceedings against Trump.

Demings and Swalwell both support an impeachment inquiry; Ratcliffe opposes impeachment, like all Republicans except Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.).

But all three have been granted a unique level of access as the Intelligence and Judiciary panels remain locked in grueling negotiations with the Justice Department over access to Mueller’s underlying evidence.

After several rounds of brinkmanship and false starts, both committees reached tentative agreements with the Justice Department to begin reviewing slices of Mueller’s files — so long as the lawmakers promise to keep a tight lid on what they see. The rules are so strict that members of the Intelligence Committee are prohibited from discussing what they see with members of the Judiciary Committee, and vice-versa.

The Justice Department recently wrote in a court filing that lawmakers and aides are to “strictly maintain the confidentiality of any information contained in the report and to use that information only for committee purposes.”

Those limits also create a difficult personal dynamic for the three lawmakers involved, who must self-censor their conversations with colleagues on each of the committees.

“It does come with the added burden of being extraordinarily responsible with the information,” Swalwell acknowledged.

“There’s just a weird way of how your brain compartmentalizes it,” Swalwell continued. “It’s not an accident that the Intel Committee is three floors under the Capitol. When you come upstairs — I don’t necessarily think about what I heard down there until I go back down there again. It’s just a physical, out of sight, out of mind. I don’t cross the two.”

The Intelligence Committee has begun to review confidential counterintelligence information about Russia’s effort to interfere in the 2016 election, as well as contacts between Russian operatives and members of the Trump campaign. The Judiciary Committee, meanwhile, has started to receive access to evidence that Trump attempted to interfere in the Russia investigation. That evidence includes contemporaneous notes and FBI witness interview notes.

Ratcliffe, a former U.S. attorney, says he’s been eager to review as much information as the Justice Department is willing to show him. “I’ve seen everything I can as quickly as they’ll let me,” he said. And he added that he wishes more colleagues on both sides of the aisle could have the same vantage point.

“I’m grateful that I’m one of the few that have had the opportunity,” Ratcliffe said. “I’m trying to take advantage of that for the benefit of educating not just Republican members of Congress but members of the public within the confines of not divulging information that I can’t for national security reasons.”

Ratcliffe noted that he’s similarly well-positioned to inform his colleagues and the public because he sat inside the room last year when the Republican-led Judiciary and Oversight Committees investigated the origins of the Trump-Russia probe. In those sessions, a handful of lawmakers directly interviewed many of the figures who played central roles in Mueller’s investigation, including James Comey, Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok.

Ratcliffe noted that even though he wishes more lawmakers could see the information he’s reviewing, many who already have access to portions of the report have declined to view them. Some of those members have declined on principle since all lawmakers can’t review the materials.

“I do think it would be helpful if more members had access, but I also think it’d be helpful if more members took advantage of the access that they had,” Ratcliffe said. “Frankly, on both sides there are folks that have the opportunity to look at information and they haven’t availed themselves of that opportunity yet, but it allows for a more informed discussion all the way around.”