Washington, D.C. – House Armed Services Committee Chairman (D-WA) released the following statement about the redacted release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation report.

“I cannot underscore how disappointed I am with Attorney General William Barr’s continued unresponsiveness to congressional oversight committees, with relevant jurisdiction, regarding access to the unredacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report. Congress has made several requests for the unredacted report, accompanied by all the underlying and related evidence and materials produced during the investigation. The unredacted report is necessary for Congress to carry out its role of oversight. In addition, the decision to release the redacted report to Congress after Trump’s personal legal team, clearly shows where Barr stands on accountability and transparency.

“In his summary, Barr contends that Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election “did not have the cooperation of President Trump or the Trump campaign.” This stance echoes Barr’s public memo to the DOJ in June 2018, which stated that “Mueller’s obstruction theory is fatally misconceived.” Barr came to the latter conclusion before he had access to all the relevant facts, and it appears that access to the investigation did not change his predetermined conclusion. He doesn’t dispute, however, the well documented threat from the government of the Russian Federation in its use of influence operations to undermine U.S. national security interests and particularly our democratic system of government.

“A lack of a thorough analysis of all facets of Russia’s multi-pronged operation from the investigation’s supporting documents, limits Congressional ability to make relevant policy and resource decisions related to deterrence, national security policy, election security and hardening our election infrastructure, strengthening our country’s cybersecurity, improving our country’s intelligence and counterintelligence posture, and helping our allies abroad to combat similar Russian behavior in their own countries.

“The Mueller report also states that key officials associated with the Trump campaign “materially impaired” the Special Counsel’s investigation and created information gaps that could possibly shed additional light (or cast a new light) on events described in the report, if previously unavailable information was made available.

“There is no more important task than safeguarding our country’s democratic process. Congress has a duty to make informed legislative, oversight, and authorization and appropriations decisions to safeguard the country. To do that, we need unfettered access to the all the information contained in Special Counsel Mueller’s report. Our national security, and the American way of life depend on it.”