WASHINGTON—House Speaker Nancy Pelosi criticized Attorney General William Barr on Thursday over his handling of the special counsel’s report, pressing the case for the full release of the document as President Trump and Republicans continued to claim vindication in the Russia probe.
Mrs. Pelosi said that the summary Mr. Barr provided to lawmakers last weekend was well short of what Congress required.
“Show us the report and we can draw our own conclusions,” Mrs. Pelosi (D., Calif.) said. Referring to Mr. Barr’s document, she added: “We don’t need you interpreting for us. It was condescending, it was arrogant, and it wasn’t the right thing to do.”
The comments were fueled by growing concerns among Democrats about how many details will be released quickly, ahead of a deadline they set for Tuesday for release of the report. As they made their demands, House Republicans and Mr. Trump seized on the summary as backing their contention that the probe was politically motivated.
“Beautiful conclusion and there was no collusion at all, there never was,” Mr. Trump said. “I wish you could have got it in one week instead of taking two years, but the result was great.”
At a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., Thursday evening, Mr. Trump hailed the end of “collusion delusion.”
“Robert Mueller was a god to the Democrats—was a god to them until he said no collusion,” the president told the crowd. “They don’t like him so much right now.”
House Republicans called on the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, which is conducting its own investigation into
Russian election interference, to resign, saying they had lost faith in his ability to do the job. Republicans also made plans to probe the circumstances of how the investigation started in the first place.
The full report on the 22-month probe is still under wraps. A person familiar with the matter said it runs to between 300 and 400 pages, not including exhibits. Still unknown is how much of the report Mr. Barr will provide to Congress and to the public and how much will remain secret.
Separately, the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner was on Capitol Hill Thursday meeting behind closed doors with the Senate Intelligence Committee to answer questions related to the panel’s Russia probe, a person familiar with the matter said. Mr. Kushner first testified before the panel in the summer of 2017—early in the committee’s investigation in Russian activity during the 2016 election. Democrats have long sought to bring him back to ask additional questions about evidence uncovered after his appearance.
A lawyer for Mr. Kushner didn’t respond to a request for comment. In a statement posted by the website Axios, Mr. Kushner said: “I hope my cooperation will help the country get the transparency it deserves and puts an end to these baseless accusations. It is time for Congress to complete its work, move on, and to turn its attention to the real problems facing Americans every day.”
The Republican-led Senate intelligence committee has been conducting a parallel investigation into many of the same matters as the special counsel with the aim of writing a comprehensive, bipartisan public report on Russian activity during the 2016 election. It is expected to complete its work soon.
Regarding Mr. Mueller’s report, lawmakers and the White House have had to rely only on Mr. Barr’s four-page summary, released Sunday, in which he wrote that special counsel Robert Mueller found extensive Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election but hadn’t established any collusion between Mr. Trump’s campaign and the Kremlin.
Mr. Barr also wrote that Mr. Mueller hadn’t reached a conclusion on whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice as the FBI, and then Mr. Mueller, investigated Russian interference. But Mr. Barr wrote that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had determined Mr. Trump’s action didn’t meet the bar of a crime.
House Democrats have focused on the contents and release of the full report. Mrs. Pelosi said Congress needs to see the whole document, rather than relying on Mr. Barr’s word. Democratic lawmakers, who are anxious to get the full report made public, believe Mr. Trump is getting a victory lap without being fully exonerated.
“They are trying to cement a particular view of events in the public consciousness before people can read the Mueller report themselves,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.), a member of the House judiciary and oversight panels.
Mr. Barr has said he is working to release more. He spoke briefly with Rep. Jerry Nadler (D., N.Y.), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, on Wednesday. Mr. Nadler, along with top Democrats, had asked to see the full report by next Tuesday and said Mr. Barr didn’t commit to making that deadline.
A Justice Department official said earlier that a version of Mr. Mueller’s report would be available for Congress and the public within weeks with redactions of certain information. In his call with Mr. Nadler, Mr. Barr declined to commit to providing Congress with the unredacted report, House Democratic aides said.
A resolution that passed the House 420-0 earlier this month called for the release of the full report to Congress, and for a redacted version to the public. Should Mr. Barr not produce the report, Democrats are reviewing next steps, a lawmaker said, which could include subpoenas and going to court.
Mrs. Pelosi said she would let the Democratic committee chairmen who requested the report decide what to do if Mr. Barr doesn’t send the report by the Democratic lawmakers’ deadline.
“They take the first bite of this wormy apple and I’ll let them decide how to go forward,” she said.
At a meeting, House Democratic aides said lawmakers would make the decision about next steps if the deadline wasn’t met.
The report contains grand jury material, the release of which is restricted by law without authorization from a federal judge. Its publication also could involve questions of executive privilege that would allow the White House to protect communications between the president and his advisers.
Mr. Trump said earlier this week he didn’t object to the report being made public.
Mr. Trump and his GOP allies in Congress have renewed their criticism of the origins of the Russia investigation. They have repeatedly pointed to the fact that the probe led to several convictions of people on Mr. Trump’s campaign and in his orbit but then failed to find any collusion with Russia involving the president and his campaign, a central theme of the probe.
Before Mrs. Pelosi spoke, all nine Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee called on the panel’s Democratic chairman, Adam Schiff of California, to resign. The GOP lawmakers cited comments Mr. Schiff made in a March 2017 television interview that there was “more than circumstantial evidence” of collusion in 2016 between Mr. Trump’s campaign and the Kremlin.
“Your actions both past and present are incompatible with your duty as chairman of the committee,” the Republican lawmakers wrote in a letter. Mr. Trump, who has publicly targeted Mr. Schiff in the past, in a tweet called for him to resign from Congress.
In response, Mr. Schiff cited a litany of contacts between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia, including a June 2016 meeting in which a son of Mr. Trump and other aides met with a Russian lawyer in hopes of getting damaging information on his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
“You might think that’s OK. I don’t,” Mr. Schiff said.
The House intelligence panel has been riven by tensions since the 2016 election. Democrats accused the former Republican chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes of California, of thwarting the panel’s probe of Russian influence.
In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Wednesday night, Mr. Trump said “people were hurt so badly, and their lives were ruined over an investigation that should never have happened.”
The Justice Department’s inspector general is continuing its investigation into how the FBI and federal prosecutors obtained warrants from the nation’s secret spy court to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Inspector General Michael Horowitz has not given a timetable for that probe to be complete.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said Thursday he has spoken with Mr. Barr about the possibility of appointing a special counsel to investigate the origins of Mr. Mueller’s investigation. He said any new congressional investigation in the Senate Judiciary Committee would begin after Messrs. Mueller and Barr have appeared before the panel.
Republicans have long sought to focus on the FBI surveillance of Mr. Page, as well as a dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, in their investigation of the probe’s origins.
According to Republican and Democratic congressional reports, the FBI launched its probe of links between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia after Trump campaign staffer George Papadopoulos told Australia’s ambassador to Britain that Russia had damaging material on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. The ambassador later relayed that conversation to U.S. officials.
Write to Natalie Andrews at Natalie.Andrews@wsj.com, Warren P. Strobel at Warren.Strobel@wsj.com and Byron Tau at byron.tau@wsj.com
