Mueller report will be delivered by ‘mid-April, if not sooner,’ attorney general tells Congress
From left, President Trump, Attorney General William P. Barr and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report detailing his investigation of President Trump and Russia’s election interference will be delivered to Congress “by mid-April, if not sooner,” Attorney General William P. Barr said Friday in a letter offering important new details about how the document will be edited before its public release.
Barr’s letter aimed to reassure lawmakers and the public that the process for handling the report — which numbers nearly 400 pages, he said — would be aboveboard and fair. It also underscored just how much political distrust may fester as long as the report remains secret, and Democrats and Republicans accuse each other of misrepresenting the contents of a document they haven’t seen.
“Everyone will soon be able to read it on their own,” Barr wrote, adding a key new detail — that he does not plan to submit the report to the White House beforehand.
“Although the president would have the right to assert privilege over certain parts of the report, he has stated publicly that he intends to defer to me and, accordingly, there are no plans to submit the report to the White House for a privilege review,” Barr wrote.
Speaking from his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, Trump told reporters Friday afternoon that he was comfortable with Barr’s handling of the high-stakes case.
Attorney General William P. Barr has submitted his summary of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's report to Congress. Here's what to expect next.
“I have great confidence in the attorney general, if that’s what he’d like to do,” Trump said. “I have nothing to hide. This was a hoax. This was a witch hunt. I have absolutely nothing to hide.”
Mueller delivered his conclusions to senior leaders at the Justice Department last week. After reviewing the report, the attorney general sent a four-page letter to Congress on Sunday, saying Mueller “did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”
Barr’s Sunday letter also said the special counsel withheld judgment on whether Trump tried to obstruct justice during the investigation.
“The Special Counsel . . . did not draw a conclusion — one way or the other — as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction,” Barr wrote in his letter last week describing Mueller’s report. “The Special Counsel states that ‘while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.’ ”
Since that Sunday letter, Democrats have demanded to see Mueller’s full report immediately — and they have threatened to issue a subpoena for the document if they don’t get it by Tuesday.
Barr’s new letter seeks to assuage such concerns and obtain more time to finish his review of Mueller’s work. The attorney general has said he needs to redact any grand jury information from the document, as well as any information that could adversely impact ongoing investigations.
In the Friday letter, Barr said he will also redact any information that would “potentially compromise sources and methods” used for intelligence collection, and any information that would “unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties.”
That language suggests Barr wants to keep secret any derogatory information gathered by investigators about figures who ended up not being central to Mueller’s investigation.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Barr’s new letter did not satisfy his demands for the complete report. . . .
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/mueller-report-will-be-delivered-by-mid-april-if-not-sooner-attorney-general-tells-congress/2019/03/29/288a3692-524c-11e9-a3f7-78b7525a8d5f_story.html?
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Barr Says Mueller Report Will Be Redacted and Made Public by Mid-April
By Katie Benner
WASHINGTON — The special counsel’s report on the investigation into Russia’s election interference will be made public by mid-April, Attorney General William P. Barr told lawmakers on Friday, adding that the White House would not see the document before he sent it to Congress.
“Everyone will soon be able to read it,” Mr. Barr wrote in a letter to the chairmen of the congressional judiciary committees.
Prosecutors from the office of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and other law enforcement officials are scouring the report for sensitive information to black out before releasing it, including secret grand jury testimony, classified materials and information about other continuing federal investigations, Mr. Barr wrote.
He said the report — which covers Moscow’s campaign to sabotage the 2016 presidential race, whether any Trump associates conspired and whether the president obstructed the inquiry — was nearly 400 pages, plus supplements. He said he planned to testify on Capitol Hill in early May, shortly after the report’s release, to discuss it with lawmakers.
Mr. Barr, who was sworn in as attorney general last month, has committed since his confirmation hearing to making public as much of the highly anticipated report as possible. But his declaration on Sunday, two days after the report was delivered to him, that Mr. Trump had not illegally obstructed justice drew swift condemnation from Democrats. They accused him of stepping in where Mr. Mueller had declined to make a prosecutorial decision.
Mr. Barr said that Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, concurred with his finding on the obstruction question but noted that Mr. Mueller, while he declined to make a judgment on the issue, also stopped short of explicitly exonerating the president.
The House passed a resolution this month, 420 to 0, demanding that the full report be released. Democrats have called for the Justice Department to send them the underlying investigative files as well.
“Congress requires the full and complete Mueller report, without redactions, as well as access to the underlying evidence,” Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement in response to Mr. Barr’s letter. . . .
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/us/politics/barr-mueller-report.html?
Copyright 2019 Martin P. All World Rights Expressly Reserved (no claim to The New York Times and The Washington Post content)
Copyright 2019 Martin P. All World Rights Expressly Reserved (no claim to The New York Times and The Washington Post content)
