Democrats demand public release of Mueller report

President Trump praised special counsel Robert Mueller’s work Monday and said it “wouldn’t bother me at all” if his report was released to the public, as Washington grappled with the fallout of the president’s exoneration from accusations he conspired with Russia to subvert the 2016 election.

Republicans said Mr. Mueller’s conclusions should put the entire matter to rest — and said if anything, new investigations should be launched looking at whether the Obama administration abused its powers to target Mr. Trump and his team for unfair investigations.

White House officials demanded mea culpas from the press and apologies from prominent Trump critics from the Obama administration. And top White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said Rep. Adam Schiff, one of the loudest Trump opponents, be ousted from the chairmanship of the House intelligence committee.

Democrats were anything but cowed.

While talk of impeachment was mostly absent, they said they’re not yet ready to accept the Mueller conclusions as relayed in a four-page memo by Attorney General William P. Barr. They have demanded the Mueller report itself be made public, and all of his work be submitted to Congress for a full review.

They set an April 2 deadline.

“Your four-page summary of the special counsel’s review is not sufficient for Congress, as a coequal branch of government, to perform this critical work. The release of the full report and the underlying evidence and documents is urgently needed by our committees to perform their duties under the Constitution,” six House committee chairs wrote.

Mr. Mueller’s report, submitted to the Justice Department on Friday, found that while Russian-backed operatives did meddle in the election and did offer to cooperate with the Trump team, the campaign did not follow through.

According to Mr. Barr’s summary, Mr. Mueller did find some questionable actions that could have suggested Mr. Trump tried to obstruct the probe into Russian activities. But Mr. Mueller did not recommend prosecution, and Mr. Barr said he didn’t think a case could be made.

“Two years, thousands of subpoenas, hundreds of search warrants, hundreds of witnesses, millions of taxpayer dollars, and these are the findings: No collusion. No conspiracy. No obstruction,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican.

What path Republicans take now remains to be seen.

Some voices said it’s time to move on from investigations and see if there’s common ground that can be reached with Democrats on issues.

Yet others say now that Mr. Mueller has answered questions about Mr. Trump, it’s time to look at “the other side of the story” — the FBI’s decision-making in targeting Mr. Trump.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican and Judiciary Committee chairman, said he would ask Mr. Barr to name a new special counsel — “somebody like Mr. Mueller” — to look at those issues.

“I just want to be able to tell people on my side: ’You’re upset about Mueller, Mueller did his job, it was right for him to do his job, you don’t have answers about this other stuff, you deserve answers,’” Mr. Graham told reporters.

He said that includes getting answers from fired FBI Director James B. Comey and tracking down the use of the anti-Trump Steele dossier in a secret-court wiretap warrant. And he chided reporters for ignoring those issues in favor of an obsession with Mr. Trump.

Yet Mr. Graham also revealed his own role in the dossier. He said when the late Sen. John McCain came to him and showed him the dossier, he told his friend to give it to the FBI. Mr. McCain did so.

But Mr. Graham says Mr. McCain isn’t the one who leaked it.

“I know because John McCain showed me the dossier, and I told him the only thing I know to do with it — it could be a bunch of garbage, could be true, who knows — turn it over to somebody whose job it is to find these things out. And John McCain acted properly,” Mr. Graham said.

He added: “People in the McCain world did some things that were inappropriate, but it was not John McCain.”

• Bailey Vogt and Alex Swoyer contributed to this article.