'Inevitable' That Robert Mueller Will Have to Testify in Front of Congress, Schiff Tells MSNBC

By David Brennan On 4/3/19 at 9:32 AM EDT

U.S. Robert Mueller Russia investigation Adam Schiff Congress

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff told MSNBC on Wednesday that he believed it was inevitable that special counsel Robert Mueller would have to testify before Congress.

As the battle over the release of the report of Mueller's 22-month investigation rages on, Schiff said the Democratic Party would want to hear conclusions from the head of the Russia investigation himself.

Mueller's probe into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election sought to establish whether President Donald Trump's campaign had conspired or cooperated with Moscow to defeat Hillary Clinton and claim the White House. The almost two-year investigation produced indictments against 34 individuals and three Russian businesses on charges that ranged from computer hacking to conspiracy to financial crimes.

But the final report—sent to Attorney General William Barr on March 22—has still not been released. Barr issued a four-page summary that he said represented the investigation's key findings, concluding that neither Trump nor his campaign conspired with Moscow to infludence the 2016 election

Trump celebrated Barr's summary letter as a "total exoneration," despite the the report specifically stating that its findings did not exonerate the president. The Democrats consider the summary of the 400-page report as insufficient, and lawmakers are now working through House committees to force the attorney general to release the full report with the underlying evidence, and might call key figures to testify.

"I think it's inevitable Bob Mueller's going to have to testify before Congress," Schiff told Morning Joe. "I would think that he will probably be needed before more than one committee. We'll have an interest in his testimony or others on the issue of the counterintelligence findings. And the Judiciary Committee, maybe the Oversight Committee as well, might have an interest in other aspects of the investigation."

The House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, gave Barr until April 2 to deliver the Mueller report in full. Barr missed the deadline, having said in a second letter that he would have a redacted version of the report ready by mid-April. The committee is now preparing subpoenas to force the release of the full report and testimony relating to the investigation.

"In the intel committee, we have a statutory requirement that the intelligence community, FBI, brief us on any significant counterintelligence or intelligence activity. And it's hard to imagine something that rises more to that level than this investigation," Schiff said.

Schiff, a California representative and prominent critic and favored target of the president, has been accused by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee of creating a "demonstrably false" narrative of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

All nine Republicans on the committee demanded last week that Schiff resign from the chairmanship, arguing that his insistence that "collusion" took place was "incompatible with your duties as the chairman of this committee."

Schiff responded e mphatically, accusing his colleagues of ignoring evidence of questionable and even criminal conduct by the Trump campaign. "I have always said that the question of whether this amounts to conspiracy is another matter," he told the Republican committee members. "But I do not think that conduct, criminal or not, is OK. And the day we do think that's OK is the day we will look back and say that is the day America lost its way."