AG Barr: Mueller Declined Offer to Review Summary, Redacted Version Will Come Out ‘Within a Week’
Barr stated that Mueller is helping the team with redactions in the report.
Attorney General William Barr began his testimony this morning in front of the House appropriations committee to discuss the Justice Department’s budget and priorities, but Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report has come up.
Barr told the members he asked Mueller if he wanted to review the four page summary, but declined. He also promised a redacted version within a week.
After Mueller completed his report, Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein released a four page summary. They stated that no one else will face indictments, Mueller’s team found that no one within President Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia, and no evidence of obstruction of justice.
The last week, the media reported that some people on Mueller’s team believe that Barr and Rosenstein’s summary “failed to adequately portray the findings of their inquiry and that they were more troubling for President Trump than Mr. Barr indicated.”
However, Barr told Congress this morning that he offered Mueller a chance to review the summary, but he declined.
Attorney General William Barr says he “offered” special counsel Robert Mueller a chance to “review” his 4-page letter summarizing the Mueller report to Congress and Mueller “declined that” https://t.co/3WVWtz5MAB pic.twitter.com/4wzS1EAwgo
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) April 9, 2019
Bill Barr says Mueller was offered an opportunity to review the “no collusion” letter issued on March 24, and declined. Stands to reason, therefore, that Mueller had full faith in Barr to represent his findings accurately.
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) April 9, 2019
Then Barr told Congress Mueller is working with the DOJ on the redaction process of the report. He hopes to release it within a week and will happily accept requests to testify in front of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees once it comes out.
Barr reiterates that Mueller is currently participating in the redaction process, and says the rationale for all redactions will be specifically explicated. Barr says the Report will be issued “within a week,” consistent with what he said all along. Another blow to the truthers.
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) April 9, 2019
I see people on Twitter complaining about the redactions, but National Review contributing editor Andrew McCarthy wrote at Fox News three days ago that a court ruling forces Barr’s hands to redact grand jury information:
I flagged this case, now called McKeever v. Barr (formerly McKeever v. Sessions), last week. It did not arise out of the Mueller investigation, but it obviously has significant ramifications for the Mueller report — in particular, how much of it we will get to see.
At issue was this question: Does a federal court have the authority to order disclosure of grand jury materials if the judge decides that the interests of justice warrant doing so; or is the judge limited to the exceptions to grand jury secrecy that are spelled out in Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure?
The D.C. Circuit’s McKeever ruling holds that the text of Rule 6(e) controls. Consequently, judges have no authority to authorize disclosure outside the rule.
That “Rule 6(e) does not contain an exception to secrecy that would permit disclosure to Congress.” So Congress may demand an unredacted version, but this ruling means they have no entitlements to it.
The team has also started to review of the “FISA process as it relates to the Trump/Russia investigation). Michael Tracy reminded everyone that officials used the Christopher Dossier to obtain a warrant on Carter Page.
Barr stated the team will finish this review in May or June.
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Comments
Even as a non-lawyer, I understand McKeever v. Barr. “Does a federal court have the authority to order a judge to break the law?” Answer: “Of course not. Don’t be silly.”
(I suspect the extended version of that answer includes “..but the appeals court *can* remove the case from the disobedient judge and order the release, in which case it can be appealed to the SC, who will (hopefully) smack down the appeals court.”)
Mueller’s team of hyper-partisan, Democrat Trump-haters is helping with redactions!!! This must mean that Barr and Mueller are engaging in a conspiracy to whitewash POTUS’s collusion!
Oh come on. Let’s face it: Trump colluded and is still colluding – with the American People! That’s what gets the Deep State so alarmed.
The contortions the Trump haters are going through is delicious. Now, Barr is “Trump’s hand picked agent to destroy any transparency on the Mueller Report.”
We had to deal with 2 years of the Dems making a legal Idol out of Mueller, and now they want to burn him at the stake of ‘Their Truth.”
Barr also responded, when asked about the FISA abuses, that an Inspector General was investigating, which is a continuation of the cover-up. The DOJ IG has the authority to only question employees of the Department which the perps, Strzok, Paige, McCabe, Yates, Lynch, et al are no longer. Special Counsel(s) need to be appointed but for some reason Barr is not and Trump is not demanding that it be done
I am hearing Barr said he (AG Barr) was trying to wrap his arms around all aspects of the FBI’s counter-intelligence investigation. If he’s going to look into it himself, why does he need a Special Counsel? Because he is incompetent? Because he was appointed by President Trump, in spite of having nothing to do with the Trump campaign?
I remain an opponent of the regulation. The AG is a political appointee responsible to the President and empowered to provide career prosecutors with oversight, a necessary and irreplaceable part of the American system of government. Let people run around on their own and all kinds of chaos happens.
Barr is talking his way around it and IMO will have a “no reasonable prosecutor” moment. The DOJ didn’t get corrupt yesterday and any of the suspects who need investigating probably know in which closets Barr’s skeletons are from his previous time as AG
The Democrats DO NOT want the unredacted report to issue. That would make it too painfully clear that the summary was accurate. They need redactions to inject doubt.
However, given the scope and intrusiveness of the investigation, I would think redactions would be in order. American citizens do have privacy rights, and the grand jury process should be kept protectable.
Of course, some of us remember how easy it is to get sealed divorce records unsealed in Chicago, if the Democrats want it that way, and Barack Obama benefits.
I’m not bothered if some judge releases the entire thing. I’m just satisfied that it is spectacularly illegal for the Attorney General to do so, regardless of what the House professes to desire. The actual laws passed by Congress (Chairman Nadler having played an instrumental role) forbid it. But other than that? I’m not the one who suffers, and nor is Trump.
Your not bothered, because your not in it…
I’m saying it’s wrong and bad, but it’s going to do a hell of a lot more damage to the fools pushing for a no-redaction public release than to the piles and piles of Americans that didn’t get charged with conspiring with Russia or obstructing justice. If that’s how it has to be, I’d rather see them embrace the consequences.
the media reported that some people on Mueller’s team believe that Barr and Rosenstein’s summary “failed to adequately portray the findings of their inquiry and that they were more troubling for President Trump than Mr. Barr indicated.”
Actually, the media reported that some people not on Mueller’s team told them that other people who were on Mueller’s team had reservations about the summary. So, nobody to question about the claim, and no way to verify that the reservations actually existed, let alone what they might be. Obvious flags of a drive-by smear job.
There are always furious phantoms behind the scenes in this political game on both sides of the aisle. We’ve seen that angle worked to death by the clickbait media. It’s usually relegated to the fringes of the blogosphere (like Infowars), but Dems are pushing it through the msm. It can only hurt their credibility.