House to issue subpoena for Mueller report

WASHINGTON—The House Judiciary Committee plans to vote Wednesday to authorize subpoenas for special counsel Robert Mueller’s full report on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Last week, six Democratic House committee chairmen sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr demanding that the Department of Justice release the full report by April 2.

In a letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, Barr said a redacted version of the report will be ready by mid-April “if not sooner.” Members of Barr and Mueller’s teams are removing from the report any grand jury material, information that would compromise sensitive sources and methods, facts that could affect ongoing investigations, and anything that could infringe on the personal privacy and reputation of “peripheral third parties.” Barr cannot legally release classified information or grand jury testimony.

Barr does not plan to share the report with the White House before releasing it. Though President Donald Trump has the right to assert executive privilege over certain parts of the report, the president “has stated publicly that he intends to defer to me and, accordingly, there are no plans to submit the report to the White House for a privilege review,” Barr said.

The House Judiciary Committee will also vote Wednesday to authorize subpoenas to several of the president’s former advisers, including strategist Steve Bannon, Communications Director Hope Hicks, chief of staff Reince Priebus, White House counsel Don McGahn, and counsel Ann Donaldson, who previously served as McGahn’s chief of staff. The subpoenas are part of an investigation the committee launched last month into whether the president obstructed justice or abused his power.