Rep. Dusty Johnson, Sen. Mike Rounds call for Mueller report to become public

U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds and U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson say they support Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Trump-Russia report becoming public.

Although the report found that there was no evidence that President Donald Trump colluded with Russia, there was evidence that Russia attempted to influence the 2016 election, Rounds said during a call with the media on Thursday.

Rounds said he believes Attorney General William Barr should release as much of the Mueller report as he can, understanding that some parts of the 300 pages may need to be redacted. Some of the statements are protected by the grand jury system and there may be national security concerns. Rounds said he doesn't know what the national security concerns are with the report, but he hopes Barr can resolve those to release as much of the report as he can in a timely manner.

"I think it's to the benefit of the president to get out as much information out as possible," Rounds said.

Rep. Dusty Johnson said that both Congress and American citizens should be able to review the Mueller report now that the investigation is complete. Americans need to be united at this time and work toward ensuring foreign adversaries can't divide the country, he said.

"The Russian government is not our friend. They do seek to undermine and destabilize our democracy. More than anything, this should be a time for Americans to come together and focus on what we can do in the future to push back on Russian interference," Johnson said in a statement.

Sen. John Thune said Mueller's conclusion is clear that Trump didn't collude with Russia ahead of the 2016 election. However, "the left is never going to let it go away" and Democrats will continue to poke holes in the report's conclusion, Thune said during a Thursday interview with conservative Sioux Falls radio host Greg Belfrage.

It's fair for Sen. Lindsey Graham, as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, begin an investigation into the actions of federal agencies and whether "some of these actors in the FBI and other places were actually conspiring, colluding to try to take down the president," but he doesn't support having a new special counsel investigate that, Thune said.