The dispute between US President Donald Trump and the Democrats in Congress over the disclosure of confidential documents has escalated. The opposition Democrats want to get the report of special investigator Robert Mueller on the Russia affair without the numerous blackened places that receives the public version. But that wants to prevent the White House. President Donald Trump will use his so-called executive privilege to block the release of the report without blackened passages, spokesman Sarah Sanders said.
The Judiciary Committee in the US House of Representatives, in which the Democrats have the majority since the beginning of the year, had demanded from Justice Secretary William Barr the publication of the complete Mueller report without blackening - including the underlying evidence. The deadline set for this Monday, however, let the Ministry of Justice pass without meeting the demand. The panel therefore wanted to vote Wednesday on a possible case against Barr for contempt of parliament.
Outrage among the Democrats
The chairman of the committee, the Democrat Jerold Nadler, reacted indignantly to the actions of the White House. He spoke of a dramatic step and a clear escalation. Nadler complained that the Trump administration had pushed the obstruction of Congress work into a new dimension.
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Donald Trump blocks
Barr interprets the report as a complete discharge of Trump, although special investigator Mueller has put together some evidence of possible judicial obstruction by Trump. The Democrats are worried that President Barr has interpreted the statements in the final report in part strongly in favor of Trump.
For almost two years, Mueller had examined two major issues: whether Trump's team had made collusion with representatives of Russia, and whether the US president was obstructing the judiciary. Background is the alleged interference of Moscow in the US presidential campaign 2016.