Trump asserts executive privilege on Mueller report

WASHINGTON  -- US President Donald Trump on Wednesday asserted executive privilege on the Mueller report, protecting the Department of Justice from Congressional subpoenas.

Trump had "asserted executive privilege over the entirety of the subpoenaed materials," Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote in a letter to Congress.

"As we have repeatedly explained, the attorney general could not comply with your subpoena in its current form without violating the law, court rules, and court orders, and without threatening the independence of the Department of Justice's prosecutorial functions," Boyd said.

"Faced with Chairman Nadler's blatant abuse of power, and at the attorney general's request, the president has no other option than to make a protective assertion of executive privilege," White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement Wednesday, referring to the House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler.

The move from the executive branch comes as the House Judiciary Committee is preparing for a vote on whether to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for defying a Congressional subpoena by refusing to turn over the complete version of the Mueller report.

Nadler said to US media that the country faced "a constitutional crisis" because "the president is disobeying the law, is refusing all information to Congress."

Executive privilege is the power of the US president and other members of the executive branch to resist certain subpoenas from the judicial and legislative branches.