US President Donald Trump used executive privilege on Wednesday to stop the release of an uncensored version of the Mueller report, a week after unconvincing testimony to Congress by his attorney general blunted the White House's effort to end allegations of obstruction of justice embroiling the president.
The move represents a significant climb-down by Mr Trump. He had previously cited his refusal to use secrecy powers reserved for the president as proof that he had nothing to hide over the long-awaited Russia investigation.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's 448-page report was published three weeks ago but with significant redactions.
An ensuing row over Attorney General William P Barr's potentially misleading four-page summary of Mr Mueller's report led to the former appearing on Capitol Hill where he failed to convince Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee that he had been transparent.
Mr Barr's refusal to re-appear 24 hours for further questioning had raised the possibility of him being cited for contempt of Congress.
The Justice Department, however, called the committee's actions unreasonable and a letter sent on Wednesday morning to its chairman Jerrold Nadler confirmed that the president had “asserted executive privilege over the entirety of the subpoenaed materials”, meaning the full Mueller report and other documents supplied to Congress.
The House Judiciary Committee maintains that Mr Barr is blocking legitimate attempts to investigate the allegations highlighted in the redacted Mueller report that Mr Trump on 10 occasions took actions that could have amounted to obstruction of justice.
To that end Mr Nadler wanted the president's former White House legal counsel Donald McGahn, a key witness cited in the Mueller report, to appear for questioning. Mr Trump's decision to use executive privilege will stop that from happening.
Democrats said the Justice Department and the White House, which as the legal and executive branches of government are separate, were effectively conspiring to block Congress.
“In the coming days, I expect that Congress will have no choice but to confront the behaviour of this lawless administration,” Mr Nadler said in a statement.
“The committee will also take a hard look at the officials who are enabling this cover up.”
Mr Trump, meanwhile, wrote on Twitter that the report proved there had been “no collusion” with Russia, calling the investigation a “treasonous hoax”.
