Trump invokes executive privilege to block release of unredacted Mueller report

President Donald Trump has invoked executive privilege to block an effort by House Democrats to access special counsel Robert Mueller’s unredacted report and underlying evidence.

The move comes at the urging of the Justice Department, which said Tuesday it intended to ask Trump to make the sweeping claim in response to Democratic plans to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress over his refusal to provide Mueller’s materials to Congress.

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“Regrettably, you have made this assertion necessary by your insistence upon scheduling a premature contempt vote,” Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler.

The two sides spent nearly all day and night on Tuesday negotiating a settlement that could have ultimately delayed the committee’s contempt proceedings.

The Justice Department offered to slightly expand congressional access to a less redacted version of Mueller’s report on links between Russia and Trump’s campaign; but Democrats said their offer wasn’t sufficient because it would still limit access to 12 senior lawmakers.

In the run-up to the committee’s vote, Democrats and Republicans bickered over the president’s blanket refusal to comply with congressional subpoenas and requests for information.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders added in a statement: “Neither the White House nor the attorney general will comply with Chairman Nadler’s unlawful and reckless demands. … Faced with Chairman Nadler’s blatant abuse of power, and at the attorney general’s request, the president has no other option than to make a protective assertion of executive privilege.”

Nadler, however, said Trump’s claim of executive privilege was “utterly without credibility, merit, or legal or factual basis,” because the White House “waived these privileges long ago.”

The Democrat-led House Judiciary Committee launched an investigation in March into allegations that the president obstructed justice, and Nadler has argued that the panel’s investigators require all of Mueller’s underlying evidence for their own probe.

Democrats have also asked Barr to join them in seeking a court order to release Mueller’s grand-jury information, which is required by law to be kept secret. Barr has said publicly he doesn’t plan to honor that request, and Nadler is expected to go to court in the coming weeks.

The Justice Department’s resistance to providing Mueller’s complete findings is just one aspect of an all-out battle against Democrat’s demands to retrace Mueller’s steps.

The White House intervened Tuesday in the Judiciary Committee’s negotiations with former White House counsel Don McGahn — whose testimony to Mueller described in vivid detail Trump’s efforts to thwart Mueller’s probe.

The White House asked McGahn to blow off the committee’s demands, and McGahn, though an attorney, deferred to the White House’s request.