House Judiciary Committee Republicans are expressing frustration with their Democrat colleagues for what they say is a misuse of the committee’s resources after it released on Wednesday the transcribed testimony of former White House counsel Don McGahn in relation to the Mueller report from two years ago.
Ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) put out a memo about McGahn’s testimony — which McGahn gave to Judiciary Committee members in a closed-door interview on Friday — saying the testimony provided no new information of substance and accusing Democrats of misspending valuable committee time.
“The Democrats’ greatest folly was using limited Committee time and resources in a face-saving project, believing they could uncover material that the Special Counsel investigation had missed,” the memo stated.
McGahn had also been questioned multiple times during special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe on Russia collusion, and Democrats viewed McGahn as a key witness in the matter. McGahn’s Friday testimony, long sought after by congressional Democrats, came as a result of an agreement they reached with President Joe Biden’s Justice Department.
Two years’ worth of litigation occurred over whether the nature of McGahn’s relationship with former President Donald Trump, who was McGahn’s client, made the attorney immune from congressional testimony. Ultimately the agreement allowed for the testimony to occur but restricted it to a private interview and only allowed questions on topics already covered in the Mueller report.
After the transcription of the testimony was released on Wednesday, committee chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) conveyed satisfaction with the findings in a statement. “Mr. McGahn provided the Committee with substantial new information,” he said, “including firsthand accounts of President Trump’s increasingly out of control behavior, and insight into concerns that the former President’s conduct could expose both Trump and McGahn to criminal liability.”
Breitbart News reached out to the Judiciary Committee Democrats’ office for comment on if the committee intends to refer either Trump or McGahn to the Justice Department for any crime — given Nadler’s allusion to “criminal liability” — but did not receive a response.
Jordan’s memo lambasted the committee Democrats for “indulging in their obsession with President Trump” while more urgent issues, such as the southern border crisis, are at hand:
Instead of rehashing the Special Counsel’s report and indulging in their obsession with President Trump, Committee Democrats should be using the Committee’s resources on issues that matter—for example, the Biden border crisis, the recent poor jobs reports, attacks on fundamental American civil rights, or Big Tech’s censorship of speech online. These issues—and not regurgitated allegations from a two-year-old investigation—are what matter to the American people.
The taxpayer-funded Mueller investigation into whether Trump colluded with Russia to interfere with his election lasted close to two years and culminated with a final report in spring 2019 that found no evidence of collusion. The report also declined to make a determination on if Trump obstructed the investigation and instead left that determination to then-Attorney General Bill Barr, who concluded sufficient evidence did not exist for obstruction of justice.
Write to Ashley Oliver at aoliver@breitbart.com.
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