LOS ANGELES (CNS) - With special counsel Robert Mueller completing his report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, attention quickly turned today to the issue of how much of it the public will actually see, with some local Democrats calling for full disclosure, regardless of what it says.
Speaking to KNX Newsradio, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, said he was concerned that Attorney General William Barr's notification letter to congressional leaders about the report being completed made ``no guarantees about how much of this he's going to share with the public.''
``The Mueller Report in its entirety needs to be shared with the public,'' the congressman said. ``The House voted overwhelmingly -- 420 to zero -- to do so, a rare moment of bipartisan approval in an otherwise very polarized investigation.''
Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told KNX the panel is prepared to subpoena the report or Mueller himself if Barr does not make the report fully public.
``Under the law, by statute, we are required in our committee to be briefed on any significant intelligence activity, including counter- intelligence,'' Schiff said. ``And so there is a lawful obligation to inform us that goes well beyond the four corners of Mueller's report.''
Some initial reports out of Washington hinted that the report does not call for any additional criminal indictments. But Schiff said that does not lessen the importance of the report.
``The report itself is only part of the story,'' he said. ``The underlying evidence may be the most important, particularly if that goes to whether the president or people around him have been compromised by a foreign power, which may or may be criminal, but nonetheless would be deeply damaging to our national security.''
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders, who made an appearance in San Diego Friday and is set to attend a rally in downtown Los Angeles Saturday, echoed the call for full transparency.
``As Donald Trump said, `Let it come out,''' Sanders said. ``I call on the Trump administration to make Special Counsel Mueller's full report public as soon as possible. No one, including the president, is above the law.''
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders issued a statement saying, ``The next steps are up to Attorney General Barr, and we look forward to the process taking its course. The White House has not received or been briefed on the special counsel's report.''
Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-Panorama City, wrote in a letter to supporters that ``Americans deserve to know what Mueller found during this two-year investigation into collusion between President Trump and Russia.''
``We need to keep this pressure up if we're going to hold the president and all those involved accountable for whatever Mueller found,'' he wrote.
Trump has repeatedly -- and vociferously -- denied allegations of collusion with Russia during the campaign, labeling Mueller's investigation a ``witch hunt.''