by Whitney Tipton
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked a resolution Monday calling for the public release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
The Kentucky Republican claimed the Department of Justice needs more time to determine which parts can be released publicly, The Hill reported.
The measure, which passed unanimously in the House 420-0 on March 14, asks the DOJ to make the full contents of the report public “except to the extent the public disclosure of any portion thereof is expressly prohibited by law.”
In Monday’s Senate session, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer asked for unanimous consent, to which McConnell objected. “The special counsel and the Justice Department ought to be allowed to finish their work in a professional manner,” the Kentucky senator said.
“To date, the attorney general has followed through on his commitments to Congress. One of those commitments is that he intends to release as much information as possible,” McConnell continued in his floor remarks. Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio supported McConnell’s objection.
Good. Because this measure is an unnecessary solution looking for a problem. Just like the previous one they had to prevent @potus from firing Mueller. https://t.co/x5wSwRZQbc
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) March 25, 2019
Mueller submitted his final report Friday to Attorney General William Barr. Barr submitted a letter Sunday to Congress concluding that President Donald Trump’s associates had not colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election. He stated that, while Mueller had not made an actual conclusion whether Trump obstructed justice, the report’s findings did not justify pursuing an obstruction of justice charge.
McConnell’s block marks the second attempt by Schumer to pass a resolution calling for the report’s public release. The first request occurred the same day the measure passed unanimously in the House. Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham objected to it, according to The Hill.
After McConnell’s objection, Schumer raised the point that the resolution didn’t say the report should be released “immediately.” The White House has said it supports the public release of the Mueller report.
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Whitney Tipton is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation. Follow Whitney on Twitter.
