DPCC Chair Cicilline: The American People Deserve to Know All the Facts Because No One is Above the Law
WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman David Cicilline, Chair of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee (DPCC), appeared on Out Front with Erin Burnett on CNN to discuss why Special Counsel Mueller's report should be released to the Judiciary Committee immediately. Cicilline reiterated that Democrats will keep fighting to make sure the American people know all the facts because no one, including the President, is above the law. Below are excerpts from the interview. Click here to watch the video
"I mean we know certainly that our intelligence community concluded with high confidence that the Russians engaged in a very sophisticated attack on our democracy led by Vladimir Putin for the purpose of helping Donald Trump and hurting Hillary Clinton. We know that. I expect the report will detail that significantly, but it just underscores why we need to see the full contents of this report to understand what the Trump associates did, what the Russians did and how we prevent this from ever happening again. With all due respect to Mr. Rosenstein, I think we all understand the importance of seeing the entire report in all of the contents before the Judiciary Committee and we really don't want to rely on summaries from Mr. Rosenstein or Mr. Barr. We need to make those judgements ourselves by seeing the full report."
"This should have been released to the Judiciary Committee immediately in the fully unredacted form. We can then make judgments working with the Special Counsel and Attorney General about what can be released to the public. But this idea that he's taking all this time to take out the stuff that he wants and deliver just portions of the report to Congress is completely unacceptable. We need to know what he's trying to keep secret and why. We're going to fight very hard to make sure the American people know all the facts because no one is above the law and we'll continue to do our oversight responsibilities to make that point."
"I'm glad to hear Senator Kennedy say that. We had a vote in the house, 420 members, Republicans and Democrats, unanimously said the report should be released in its entirety, so they have they said that in the House. I think unfortunately we've seen Mr. Barr in his recent testimony make it very clear he believes he works for the President and his role is to somehow protect this President rather than honor the oath he took to the Constitution and to the American people. So I'm very skeptical, but I'm delighted to hear that there's some Republicans that are saying the right things. This is about the right of the American people to know the truth, to know the facts, and to see the full contents of this report. I welcome the Republican support of our efforts."