Trump invokes 'privilege' over the full Mueller report

The White House invoked executive privilege Wednesday, claiming the right to block lawmakers from the full report from special counsel Robert Mueller on his Trump-Russia probe and escalating the battle between President Donald Trump and Congress.

The administration's decision was announced just as the House Judiciary Committee was gaveling in to consider holding Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress over failure to release the full report.

Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York declared the action by Trump's Justice Department was a clear new sign of the president's "blanket defiance" of Congress' constitutional rights.

"Every day we learn of new efforts by this administration to stonewall Congress," Nadler said. "This is unprecedented."
In a letter Wednesday to Trump , Barr explained that the special counsel's files contain millions of pages of classified and unclassified information. He said it was the committee's "abrupt resort to a contempt vote" that "has not allowed sufficient time for you to consider fully whether to make a conclusive assertion of executive privilege."
"This is a moment in history," said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas. "The president now seeks to take a wrecking ball to the Constitution of the United States." But the top Republican on the panel, Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, called the majority's decision to push ahead with a contempt resolution "cynical, mean-spirited, counterproductive and irresponsible."