“Justice Department willing to hand over counterintelligence if Schiff backs off ‘enforcement action’”
Now this is where the Dems need to start playing from the Republican playbook. First, they should make the deal and agree not to hold Barr in contempt for his failure to testify, if they get the materials they seek. Then, after they get the materials, they should subpoena Barr again, because he’ll have to explain why many things were redacted, and why his summary was misleading. It will be even more embarrassing for him to explain why certain things were redacted after they are known, so he will of course refuse to testify again. Then they hold him in contempt for the second refusal, thus honoring their part of the deal on the first refusal.
Now THAT is the art of the deal.
From reading the article, the DOJ position is subtly different than the CNN headline. The DOJ didn’t say, “ok if you stop trying to hold Barr in contempt, we’ll give you the unredacted report,” which is how I read the headline. The DOJ said they are continuing to review the portions redacted for intelligence reasons with an eye to declassifying more of that material, but if they continue enforcement actions, they’ll stop the review. At least, I think that’s what the DOJ meant.
Now as I understand it, Barr has made the entire report, with the exception of grand jury materials, available to be read by committee members in a secure facility, but no one has taken advantage of the offer. As the Russia investigation was technically a counterintelligence investigation, it is not surprising that the intelligence community would want parts of the report to remain classified. It’s possible that the Trump administration might try to classify embarrassing material that doesn’t objectively deserve to be classified. But if the Democrats think that’s the case after reading the classified portions, they could say so. They couldn’t legally say what the classified portions said, but they could loudly claim that portions were misclassified just to protect Trump. Since they haven’t chosen to read these parts, it seems to me they don’t suspect it was misclassified and/or they feel it is more advantageous politically to complain that the whole report should be released without redactions.
Under federal law, grand jury materials may not be released except under certain specified circumstances and even then only with a court order. Neither Chairman Nadler or Chairman Schiff (nor any other representative) has petitioned a federal court for an order to release the parts of the Mueller report that were redacted because they contained grand jury material. I think that they haven’t is probably because they benefit more from complaining than they would from getting the unredacted report. I certainly haven’t heard any of the Democrats give a reasoned legal argument why they think the AG can legally release the grand jury materials.
I think you have several things inappropriately conflated.
This dispute has to do with neither the slightly less redacted report nor the grand jury testimony. It is about the raw source materials, the so-called “underlying evidence.” Even Devin Nunes agrees that the House is entitled to them. (As you probably know, he wants them for a different reason – examining the origin of the investigation.)
Schiff wants several categories of information in Mueller’s evidence that specifically pertain to the Intelligence Committee’s jurisdiction over intelligence. There is no possible legal reason to withhold it. That is specifically their job.
And the case is exactly as I described it. This statement is verbatim: “The Department has already begun the process of identifying, locating and reviewing the materials potentially responsive to the categories of documents, a process that will not continue should the Committee take the unnecessary and unproductive step of moving to hold the Attorney General in contempt.”
As I noted, there will be plenty of time to hold Barr in contempt after the documents are released, when he will certainly attempt more stonewalling, and will try to avoid discussing any of his previous statements which were probably perjury.
Bravo, Maestro! Bravissimo!!
Perfect!