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.
“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.
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine