In an interview broadcast Sunday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said that the Democrats “know there was collusion,” The Hill reports.
Nadler went on Fox News Sunday to discuss what comes next now that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is officially done with his investigation into Russian election interference and related matters. As previously reported by The Inquisitr , the Russia probe concluded Friday, when Mueller submitted his final report to Attorney General William Barr.
According to Justice Department officials, Mueller has no sealed indictments, and he will not seek further indictments. Trump allies interpreted these findings — or lack thereof — as a signal that the president is in the clear, claiming vindication. The Democrats, on the other hand, are vowing more wide-ranging investigations and insisting that Barr makes the full Mueller report available to the public.
But according to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, the fact that no one seems to be “indictable” does not mean that there has been no collusion.
“We know that the campaign manager gave targeting data, political targeting data, to an agent over the Russian government,” Nadler told Fox News host Chris Wallace, referring to Mueller’s case against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
“Maybe it’s not indictable but we know there was collusion. The question is to what degree and for what purpose.”
Chris Wallace pushed back against Nadler’s claims, arguing that, since Mueller is not recommending new indictments, President Trump is in the clear, and Mueller has failed to prove a criminal conspiracy with Moscow officials. Nadler doubled down, arguing that there is “in plain sight, a lot of collusion.”
The Democrat argued that there is evidence suggesting that both Donald Trump Jr. and Trump’s campaign chairman met with Russian nationals to discuss the prospect of Russia helping Trump win the 2016 presidential election. As The Hill notes, Nadler also argued throughout the interview that counterintelligence investigations do not always lead to criminal prosecution.
Other investigations do, according to the top Democrat, who — echoing virtually all of his Democratic colleagues — called on Attorney General William Barr to release the full report.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler called for Robert Mueller’s report to be released publicly along with any underlying evidence, arguing that doing less could be considered a “cover-up” https://t.co/pF8vdviXSL
— POLITICO (@politico) March 24, 2019
While Attorney General William Barr might not yet be willing to release the report, he is set to brief the House Judiciary Committee. Barr will submit his own summary of the Mueller report to Congress by Sunday at 5 p.m, according to a lawmaker familiar with the matter, per reporting from The Hill .
As the publication notes, the White House stated that President Trump — who has been traveling this weekend — has not yet been briefed on Robert Mueller’s findings.
