Special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia report is more than 300 pages long, it was revealed Thursday — sparking anger from Democrats arguing that Attorney General William Barr’s four-page summary wasn’t enough.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Barr’s synopsis that cleared President Donald Trump of campaign collusion with Russia and criminal obstruction of the federal probe “condescending” and “arrogant.”
“Mr. Attorney General, we do not need your interpretation,” Pelosi said Thursday. “Show us the report and we’ll come to our own conclusions.” She mocked the administration and Republicans as “scaredy-cats.”
The Justice Department official said Barr discussed the length of the report during a phone call Wednesday with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler.
Barr has been at work going through the document and its underlying evidence amid Democrat and mainstream media conspiracy theories that he was hiding the truth.
For his part, Barr has said he’ll release at a version of the report to both Congress and the public in April, once he’s finished reviewing and removing secret information, and also told Nadler he would agree to testify before his committee.
As that battle brews, Trump resumed his attack on Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., just as the chairman of the intelligence committee was about to gavel the panel into session.
“Congressman Adam Schiff, who spent two years knowingly and unlawfully lying and leaking, should be forced to resign from Congress!” Trump tweeted early Thursday.
Republicans formalized their demand that Schiff resign as chairman of the intelligence panel over his comments that there was significant evidence the president and his associates conspired with Russia.
“We have no faith in your ability to discharge your responsibilities” in line with the Constitution, the Republicans wrote to Schiff in a missive they read aloud at the hearing.
Republicans pointed to Barr’s synopsis, released Sunday, that said Mueller’s probe didn’t find that Trump’s campaign “conspired or coordinated” with the Russian government to influence the 2016 presidential election.
Since Barr’s findings were released, Schiff this week has repeated a widely repeated conspiracy theory that evidence of collusion exists but is being hidden… despite investigators saying otherwise. He says Mueller’s failure to find a evidence doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Outside the hearing room, the main battle continued over releasing Mueller’s still-confidential report. The New York Times first reported Thursday that the report was more than 300 pages.
Barr told the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., that he’s combing through Mueller’s report and removing classified, grand jury and other information in hopes of releasing the rest to Congress.
Trump has said he’s fine with releasing the findings. “The president said, ‘Just let it go,’ and that’s what’s going to happen,” Graham said.
The Associated Press contributed to this article