Rep. Jayapal: Refusal to release Mueller report an act of ‘lawless administration’

The Trump administration announced Wednesday that the president will invoke executive privilege to prevent the full, unredacted Mueller report from being released. Washington Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal took little time to react, calling the Trump administration a “lawless administration.”

“This is one of the most serious moments our democracy has faced, and it is a test,” Jaypal said at a committee hearing Wednesday. “It is a test against an administration that is continually disregarding Congress; an administration that seems to have no regard for checks and balances.”

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Jayapal represents Washington’s 7th Congressional District, covering much of the Seattle area and Vashon Island. She spoke Wednesday morning as the House Judiciary Committee was discussing whether Congress will hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt for not releasing the full report.

“Let’s be clear, we are at a brink of importance between democracy and dictatorship if we ignore checks and balances,” she said. “And I fully support holding this attorney general in contempt for refusing to comply with constitutional foundations.”

Democrats believe the blacked-out sections of the previously-released version of the Mueller Report could provide evidence that President Trump obstructed justice.

“We need to see everything that was in the report, and frankly the attorney general has misrepresented what is in the report,” Jayapal said. “Just look at these articles, the discrepancy between the Mueller report and Barr — how Barr’s excerpts compare to the Mueller Report’s findings.”

Republicans argue that there is nothing there. Republican Rep. Doug Collins  said Democrat’s efforts toward a contempt resolution was “cynical, mean-spirited, counterproductive, and irresponsible,” according to the Associated Press.

Still, Jayapal says that the president’s move to invoke executive privilege is “an unprecedented effort to exert executive privilege, sweeping executive privilege, over the entire Mueller Report.”

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