Lawmaker says he is trying to nail down a date for Mueller to testify

[May 02, 2019]  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Democratic chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee said on Wednesday he was seeking to nail down a date to have Special Counsel Robert Mueller testify to Congress about his investigation into Russian election interference and attempts by President Donald Trump to impede the probe.

Representative Jerry Nadler told reporters it was important to have Mueller testify "which they've agreed to do subject to setting a date, and we'll see if they do that, sometime in May."

A spokeswoman for the committee said negotiations over a hearing date were ongoing with the Justice Department.

Nadler made the comment shortly before the panel met to consider whether to stick to its demand that Attorney General William Barr submit himself to questioning by congressional staff during a planned hearing on Mueller's report on Thursday.

The report by Mueller detailed a series of actions by Trump to impede the Russia probe, but it did not conclude whether those actions constituted the crime of obstruction.

It did, however, conclude that Trump and his campaign had not engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Moscow.

Robert Mueller, as FBI director, testifies before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington March 12, 2013. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo/File Photo

In a letter to Barr , which the Justice Department released on Wednesday, Mueller said the attorney general did not "fully capture the context, nature, and substance" of the investigation's conclusions in a four-page summary he released in April before a redacted version was made public.

(Reporting by Tim Ahmann; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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