Nadler: AG may miss April 2 deadline, called Mueller report ‘substantial’

The head of the House Judiciary Committee said Wednesday he is worried Attorney General William Barr will not meet Democrats’ deadline to turn over the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.

“I am very concerned that it is apparent that the Department [of Justice] will not meet the April 2 deadline that we set, and I’m very disturbed by that,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) told reporters Wednesday evening.

“I asked him when we would see it, and he couldn’t get specific. He said weeks, not months, as we’ve heard before,” he added.{mosads}

Nadler, who insisted the early April date is a hard deadline, would not commit to whether he would immediately use a subpoena to compel Barr to provide the documents — though Democrats have threatened to use such power if their requests are not satisfied.

“We will wait until after April 2nd, and we will make those decisions,” he said.{mosads}

Nadler said Barr committed to testifying before his panel during a roughly 10-minute phone call earlier Wednesday, though the timing of any appearance by the attorney general on Capitol Hill is unclear. Nadler told reporters it would be “reasonably soon.”

The attorney general on Wednesday also described the length of Mueller’s report that he filed with the Justice Department last week as “substantial,” according to Nadler. The chairman said that added to his concerns about Barr’s summary report of the probe released to lawmakers on Sunday.

“He told me it was a ‘very substantial report’ — one that, in my judgment, a four-page summary would not begin to do justice to,” Nadler said.

“It is unacceptable if the Congress and the people don’t see the full report, and he wouldn’t commit to that. And we are not happy about that, to put it mildly,” Nadler said.

Barr’s summary report revealed that Mueller did not find evidence of conspiracy or collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, a finding that President Trump and Republicans have hailed as a big win.

The attorney general’s summary also said that while Mueller decided against making a call on whether there was obstruction of justice, Barr weighed in and concluded that the investigation did not reach the threshold of evidence for there to be a case against Trump.

“The Special Counsel states that ‘while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,'” Barr wrote to lawmakers in the letter sent Sunday.

Democrats have claimed the involvement of Barr, a Trump appointee, on the obstruction of justice question is further reason for them to review the full report.