The top two members of the House intelligence committee have said Special Counsel Robert Mueller “must” brief them on his investigation, according to a letter obtained by The Daily Beast.
The letter, signed by Democratic Chairman Adam Schiff and Republican Ranking Member Rep. Devin Nunes, was sent on March 27, shortly after Attorney General Bill Barr released a short letter summarizing Mueller’s findings. They sent it to Barr, FBI Director Chris Wray, and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
The letter asked for Mueller and other senior members of his team to brief the committee on their work. It also asked for all the materials Mueller gathered during his probe: “all materials, regardless of form and classification, obtained or produced by the Special Counsel’s Office in the course of the investigation, including but not limited to any addenda or annexes to the full report, or separate intelligence or counterintelligence-related reports; scope-related materials regarding the investigation’s parameters, areas of inquiry, and subjects; investigative records and materials,” as well as raw reporting and finished analysis related to his work.
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The letter was a rare moment of bipartisan concord on the notoriously fractured committee, and suggests Schiff and Nunes will work together to extract as much information and detail as possible from Mueller’s team.
Barr’s initial letter summarizing the report generated intense controversy; President Donald Trump tweeted his letter proved he had been fully exonerated of all wrongdoing, while critics of Barr blamed him for running interference for the White House. Barr told Congress last week that he offered to let Mueller review his letter before sending it, and that Mueller declined to do so.
Barr is set to release a redacted version of Mueller’s report later this week. He has said he will redact material from the grand jury, classified material, content related to ongoing investigations, and portions that could embarrass people peripherally related to the investigation who have not been charged with crimes. Members of Congress are already gearing up for court fights to lift some—if not all—of the redactions.
