Democrats vowed to gain access to the full special counsel report, and seized on statements that were less than definitive in the attorney general’s summary of it.
WASHINGTON — Attorney General William P. Barr’s summary on Sunday of the special counsel investigation keeps the impeachment of President Trump off the table, at least for now, but Democrats vowed to push forward with investigations into every aspect of the presidency and for access to the full report of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.
Although Democrats did not dispute Mr. Mueller’s conclusion that Mr. Trump and his campaign did not conspire with Russia to influence the 2016 election, they moved quickly to seize on less definitive statements made by Mr. Mueller and Mr. Barr on whether the president obstructed justice.
Specifically, they said an apparent disagreement between the two men over how to judge evidence collected by the special counsel made it imperative for Congress to scrutinize every detail of the case to ensure impartiality. Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which is investigating whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice or abused power, promptly said he would call Mr. Barr to explain “very concerning discrepancies” in a hearing before his committee.
Mr. Barr quoted from Mr. Mueller’s report in his summary: “The special counsel states that ‘while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.’” But then added that he and Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, had concluded the evidence developed by Mr. Mueller “is not sufficient to establish” that Mr. Trump obstructed justice.
The top Democrats in the Senate and House also urged public release of Mr. Mueller’s full report to see that evidence.
“The fact that special counsel Mueller’s report does not exonerate the president on a charge as serious as obstruction of justice demonstrates how urgent it is that the full report and underlying documentation be made public without any further delay,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York said in a joint statement.
“The American people have a right to know,” they added.
With other congressional investigations of Mr. Trump are already swirling, the Democrats’ stance raised the prospect that they could undertake months, if not years, of scrutinizing federal prosecutors and top officials of the Justice Department — a prospect that echoes Republicans’ yearslong pursuit of the federal officials who handled the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.
