The House Judiciary Committee voted on Wednesday to authorize the issuance of a subpoena for special counsel Robert Mueller’s full and unredacted report.
The move, which was approved on a 24-17 party-line vote, is one step closer to forcing Attorney General William Barr to turn over the roughly 400-page report.
He has said he plans to publicly release the documents with redactions later this month.
“We need these materials to fulfill our constitutional obligations,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the committee chair, ahead of the vote.
The vote gives Nadler authorization to issue a subpoena to the Justice Department for the final report, its exhibits and any underlying evidence or materials prepared for Mueller’s probe.
He has not said when, or if, he would do so.
The Democrat-led committee also approved subpoenas for five of President Trump’s former top advisers: Steve Bannon, Hope Hicks, Reince Priebus, Donald McGahn and Ann Donaldson. The five served as key witnesses in Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election.
Earlier, the committee rejected a GOP amendment that sought to block the subpoena from seeking grand jury information.
But afterward, Nadler told reporters he would “absolutely” go to court to get that information.
Nadler earlier hinted that he would delay the issuance of the subpoena to give Barr “time to change his mind.”
The move to compel the Justice Department to release the Mueller report comes one day after Barr missed a Nadler-imposed deadline to turn over the massive document. He told lawmakers last week that he couldn’t make the deadline but promised to release it in mid-April, if not sooner.