Trump rails against asylum seekers and Mexico as Congress prepares to subpoena Mueller report
House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler is planning a vote on Wednesday on a motion to subpoena special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on ties between Donald Trump and Russia and demand testimony from at least four former top Trump aides.
The report is still under review by attorney-general William Barr but Mr Nadler has lost patience and hopes to issue him with a “hurry up” notice and call up Mr Trump’s ex-chief strategist Steve Bannon, former director of strategic communications Hope Hicks, ex-White House Counsel Don McGahn and former chief of staff Reince Priebus to appear before his committee.
President Trump has meanwhile repeated his threat to shutdown the US border with Mexico in protest at what he regards as America’s neighbour’s failure to tackle northbound illegal immigration and called on the Democrats to help fix asylum “loopholes”.
Mr Mueller's report was delivered to the Justice Department a week and a half ago, marking an end to a nearly two year investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign.
The attorney general's office then sent a letter to Congress just two days later, detailing in broad strokes the findings of the investigation. Mr Barr wrote in that letter that the Mueller probe found no evidence of collusion or conspiracy between the Russian efforts and the Trump campaign. Mr Barr then noted that the Mueller probe did not make a judgement on whether Mr Trump had committed obstruction of justice — and the attorney general said that he had determined that charges were not warranted.
The information in the letter has been celebrated by Mr Trump, who has insisted repeatedly during the first two years of his campaign that he and his campaign had not colluded with the Russian meddling.
The Mueller report did, however, note that dozens of Russian individuals or groups were involved in an effort to sway the election for Mr Trump.
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