House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said he would subpoena special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation report, and sue the Trump administration for the underlying evidence if it's necessary to make it public.
"Absolutely, we are going to get to the bottom of this,'' Schiff, D-Calif., said on ABC's "This Week" Sunday. "We are going to share this information with the public."
William Barr, confirmed by the Senate as attorney general this month, has signaled that he may provide only a summary of the report to Congress and the public. While Mueller is close to completing his 21-month investigation, he won't submit his final report to Barr until sometime after next week, according to a Justice Department official.
Schiff said it's critical to get access not only to Mueller's report, but also to the evidence that was collected during the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion with Trump's campaign. He said he'll subpoena the report, call Mueller to testify before Congress, and sue if details were withheld.
Withholding evidence from Congress about possible wrongdoing by Trump could amount to a cover-up even if the president isn't charged with criminal acts, Schiff and the leaders of six House committees told Barr in a letter Friday. A sitting president can't be indicted under Justice Department policy, which also frowns on releasing evidence of wrongdoing by people who haven't been charged.
Prosecutors turned over such material after its investigation of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's handling of emails and should do so again, Schiff said.
"We can't tell the country fully what happened without it," Schiff said, citing "the intense public need to know here, which I think overrides any other consideration."
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said in a separate interview on ABC that he was concerned about turning over the Clinton details to Congress, but that "this is a practice that will be hard to step away from."
The report should be made public, and Congress should receive all the supporting material, said Sen. Kamala Harris of California, a Democratic presidential candidate.
"Given in particular all the misinformation that we can, I think, rightly believe we've heard, it is important that the American public receive as much information and that we be as transparent as possible," Harris said on CNN Sunday.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said regulations require only that the attorney general to provide him and the committee's top Democrat a summary of what was found. He called it a "'who is going to be pursued criminally if anybody at all' kind of a summary."
"He doesn't have to give us the entire report," Graham said on Fox. "If there is no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian intelligence community, then that should be the end of all this."
Meanwhile, Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and fixer, is scheduled to testify before Schiff's committee and two other congressional committees this week. Schiff said Cohen will be pressed on what he knows about possible collusion with Russia, why Cohen previously provided false statements to Congress, and the finances of the Trump organization.
"We think he has a lot to offer," Schiff said.
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(Ben Brody contributed to this report.).
