Nancy Pelosi Promises She Won’t Let The Mueller Report Stay Classified

Update, 24th March March: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have called for Robert Mueller's full report, which cleared Trump of colluding with Russia during the 2016 presidential election, to be made public shortly after Attorney General William Barr submitted a summary to Congress.

"The fact that Special Counsel Mueller’s report does not exonerate the president on a charge as serious as obstruction of justice demonstrates how urgent it is that the full report and underlying documentation be made public without any further delay," Pelosi and Schumer said in a joint statement.

They added: “Congress requires the full report and the underlying documents so that the committees can proceed with their independent work, including oversight and legislating to address any issues the Mueller report may raise. The American people have a right to know."

In his summary, Barr noted that the report did not draw a conclusion on whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice and that Mueller wrote, "[W]hile this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime it also does not exonerate him." Barr said he and the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, did not find sufficient evidence of any obstruction of justice offences. "Complete and Total EXONERATION," Trump tweeted after the summary was made public.

Robert Mueller’s two-year investigation into possible collusion between President Donald Trump and Russia was submitted to Attorney General William Barr on Friday, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is pledging to fight to declassify its findings so lawmakers are free to discuss them publicly.

Pelosi warned fellow members of the House that the Justice Department may try to only reveal the report’s findings to a select few top Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate in an effort to hide them from the public, reports Politico. The investigation took 22 months and resulted in charges against 34 people.

“The American people deserve the truth. AG Barr must #ReleaseTheReport & allow the facts to be known!” Pelosi tweeted.

In a joint statement from Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, they made their intentions clear. “Now that Special Counsel Mueller has submitted his report to the attorney general, it is imperative for Mr. Barr to make the full report public and provide its underlying documentation and findings to Congress.”

There is debate among political parties and organisations over what information will be shared and how much of it, but Democrats are citing demands for transparency during the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server as a precedent. GOP lawmakers were given access to thousands of FBI officials’ text messages, agent notes, thousands of files, and internal emails in relation to the Clinton investigation.

Congressional leaders are awaiting a brief on the report from Barr any day now. “I am reviewing this report and anticipate that I may be in a position to advise you of the Special Counsel’s principal conclusions as soon as this weekend,” Barr wrote on Friday in a letter addressed to the House and Senate judiciary committees.

While there are no further indictments in the Mueller investigation, the inquiry is far from over. About a dozen investigations came from Mueller’s work and are being pursued by federal and state prosecutors.