Analysis: The evolution of the obstruction of justice dispute between Barr and Mueller
Attorney General William Barr answers a question during a news conference hours before releasing a lightly redacted version of the Mueller report on April 18 in Washington. By Philip Bump Philip Bump National correspondent focused largely on the numbers behind politics Email Bio Follow May 1 at 7:00 AM There’s been little question since the news conference that preceded the release of the report detailing special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation that Attorney General William P.
The focus of the memo was the idea that Mueller’s probe included an assessment of whether Trump had tried to obstruct the investigation. While admitting that he was “in the dark about many facts,” given the secrecy surrounding Mueller’s work, Barr’s view was broadly that such an investigation was suspect and that “Mueller’s obstruction theory is fatally misconceived.”
The answer to the first question was no, according to Barr, who cited part of a sentence from Mueller’s report: “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” “The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office’s work and conclusions,” it read. “There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.
”[M]y notification to Congress and the public provided, pending release of the report, a summary of its ‘principal conclusions’ — that is, its bottom line,” he continued. He later added, “I do not believe it would be in the public’s interest for me to attempt to summarize the report or release it in serial fashion.”
“No, I don’t,” Barr replied. “I think — I think — I suspect that they probably wanted more put out, but in my view, I was not interested in putting out summaries or trying to summarize because I think any summary regardless of who prepares it not only runs the risk of, you know, being underinclusive or overinclusive, but also, you know, would trigger a lot of discussion and analysis that really should await everything coming out at once.
At three separate points, he echoed Trump’s constant refrain that there was “no collusion” — though he constrained the lack of collusion to Russia’s social-media and hacking efforts. The report itself, though, released a few hours later, specifically avoided using “collusion” as the benchmark against which the campaign’s actions were judged, instead looking at criminal culpability.
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