Members of President Trump’s team on Sunday insisted they’re not concerned about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, but said it’s up to Attorney General William Barr to decide exactly how much of it should be released to Congress.
Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of the president’s lawyers, said he’s confident there will be no evidence of anything “really bad” in Mr. Mueller’s report.
“I guarantee you, except for little quibbles, I’m not worried about the report at all,” Mr. Giuliani said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
He pointed to Mr. Barr’s recent summary that said the report didn’t establish collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and that Mr. Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded there wasn’t enough evidence to establish that the president tried to obstruct justice.
“There’s no way those two good lawyers would have written that kind of letter if there’s any issue,” Mr. Giuliani said.
Mr. Giuliani said he would support giving all the information in the report to congressional Democrats, who have demanded that Mr. Barr release a full, unredacted version.
“The president has told the attorney general, has told everybody, the world: I am comfortable with everything being released,” Mr. Giuliani said. “Now, the president can’t change the law. Now the attorney general has to apply that he wants to do maximum transparency. I’m sure we’ll get just about all of it. I hope we get all of it.”
Mr. Giuliani’s comments came after recent news reports said some of Mr. Mueller’s investigators have expressed frustration with how Mr. Barr summarized the report’s major findings in the four-page letter to lawmakers last month.
The summary did say that Mr. Mueller’s report didn’t conclude the president obstructed justice, but said it also didn’t exonerate him.
The president himself decried unspecified leaks on Sunday.
“Looks like Bob Mueller’s team of 13 Trump Haters & Angry Democrats are illegally leaking information to the press while the Fake News Media make up their own stories with or without sources — sources no longer matter to our corrupt & dishonest Mainstream Media, they are a Joke!” he said on Twitter.
Mr. Trump suggested last month that the public should be able to see Mr. Mueller’s report.
“I don’t mind,” the president said. “Let it come out. Let people see it. That’s up to the attorney general.”
Jay Sekulow, another attorney for Mr. Trump, likewise said Sunday he isn’t concerned that the actual report will be more damaging than what Mr. Barr suggested in the summary.
“No, because there’s two conclusions that are important here to reiterate — and that is in General Barr’s letter, he said I’m only going to discuss the principal conclusions,” Mr. Sekulow said on ABC’s “This Week.” “And what were those principal conclusions? No obstruction and no collusion.”
He did acknowledge that the special counsel did not make a determination on whether Mr. Trump tried to obstruct justice.
“They’re not saying the president committed a crime; they’re not saying that he was exonerated,” he said. “Which by the way — special counsels don’t exonerate, so I don’t even know why that line’s in there. But nevertheless it is.”
He said Mr. Trump will defer to Mr. Barr on what ends up getting released.
“The president has said he turns this over to the attorney general, the attorney general pursuant to the regulations makes the determination as to what’s released, how it’s released,” he said.
Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney on Sunday said no one at the White House has made a request to see the full report before it goes to Congress and said, also, that the president will defer to Mr. Barr.
“Mr. Barr is going to make those decisions,” Mr. Mulvaney said on “Fox News Sunday.” “I think the president’s been very consistent — Mr. Barr is going to make those decisions, and I’m comfortable with that.”
Mr. Mulvaney also said he isn’t all that interested personally in seeing the whole report.
“I don’t really have much interest. I know what it says and it says no collusion and no obstruction,” he said.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said Mr. Barr could send a version of the report to Congress late this week or early next week.
“We are demanding and we have a right, the Congress has a right to the entire report with no redactions whatsoever so we can see what’s there,” Mr. Nadler, New York Democrat, said on “Face the Nation.”
Mr. Barr has said he anticipates releasing the report by mid-April and that redactions would include grand jury information, sensitive intelligence material, information that could affect other ongoing matters, and information that would infringe on the privacy of “peripheral” third parties.
The Justice Department has indicated that every page of Mr. Mueller’s final report could contain confidential grand jury information, and Mr. Nadler acknowledged lawmakers could have to go to court to obtain those parts.
Mr. Nadler said it’s still unclear what the full report will turn up.
“Who knows? There could be grounds for impeachment. There could be grounds for other action,” he said. “You can commit shameful acts. You can commit complete betrayals of the public interest without committing impeachable acts. And if you did that, the public ought to know that, too.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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