Trey Gowdy, former chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said Friday he has full confidence that Attorney General Bill Barr was able to read and write an accurate summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation report in a weekend.
A Justice Department official told Fox News this week that the Mueller report is more than 300 pages long.
“He summarized it, I’m quite certain he read it, he’s a really, really smart guy which is something that should give all of us confidence. Three hundred pages is not that much,” said Gowdy, who is also an attorney, on The Daily Briefing with Dana Perino.
Barr said Friday he plans to submit the full version of Mueller’s report to Congress by "mid-April, if not sooner," and will not give the White House a sneak peek.
The timetable comes as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle – but especially Democrats – have been demanding that Barr release the full report. Barr submitted a four-page summary to congressional leaders last Sunday reporting Mueller did not find evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, while he did not reach a conclusion on whether President Trump obstructed justice.
Barr said the Justice Department and the special counsel are “well along in the process of identifying and redacting” sensitive material, including material that “by law cannot be made public,” “material the intelligence community identifies as potentially compromising sensitive sources and methods; material that could affect other ongoing matters, including those that the Special Counsel has referred to other Department offices; and information that would unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties.”
Meanwhile, Republican House Intelligence Committee members are calling for Democratic Chairman Adam Schiff’s resignation.
The Republican committee members demanded that Schiff step down as chairman over the California Democrat’s repeated claims to have evidence of Trump-Russia collusion. In a letter, obtained by Fox News and signed by every Republican on the committee, the lawmakers slammed Schiff for his claims in the media that there was “more than circumstantial evidence” of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
They repeated their demand in person during a heated hearing on Thursday morning.
ADAM SCHIFF URGED TO STEP DOWN AS CHAIRMAN BY HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE REPUBLICANS
The letter, which was sent to Schiff as he was confronted by those same Republicans, follows the conclusion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.
“Your actions both past and present are incompatible with your duty as chairman of this committee,” the letter stated. “We have no faith in your ability to discharge your duties in a manner consistent with your constitutional responsibility and urge your immediate resignation as chairman of this committee.”
“Adam Schiff shouldn’t resign,” said Democratic congressman Ro Khanna of the House Oversight Committee on Fox & Friends Friday. “We have a separation of powers, that’s part of the Constitution. You have strong oversight.” Khanna encouraged everyone to “move on.”
Gowdy responded by listing the members of the Republican House Intelligence Committee. “These are not members of the bomb-throwing caucus and for them to say ‘Adam Schiff, we have lost confidence in your leadership,’ I’ll tell you I think what’s going to happen next, Dana, is the intelligence community is going to say ‘you know what Adam, you disregard the information that you’re provided, you prejudge the outcome of investigations, you had the president not just indicted but in jail, we’re going to stop sharing information with you,’” Gowdy said.
“’If you are the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and you can’t act in a reasonable way, we’re going to stop sharing information with you’ in which case Pelosi will have no choice but to replace Schiff.”
Schiff, a vocal critic of the president, has doubled down on his claim that Trump and his administration colluded with Russia, and he defended himself during Thursday’s hearing.
Schiff pointed to evidence of Russian hacking during the last presidential election and noted that members of Trump’s campaign and family took meetings with Russians.
“You might think that’s OK that they lied about the meeting,” Schiff said. “I don’t think that’s OK.”
Mueller’s determination that the investigation did not support claims of collusion were touted by President Trump as a “total exoneration.”
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Democrats, though, have sought more information about what Mueller may have found on the obstruction issue. While Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein determined the report could not support an obstruction case, Democrats challenged that conclusion as they wait to see the full report.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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