Goober McTuber wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2019 6:32 pm
[quote
]Members of Robert Mueller’s team are
reportedly disputing the way William Barr has characterized their conclusions, telling
close associates in recent days that the four-page summary the attorney general released last month “failed to adequately portray the findings of their inquiry,” and suggesting that the special counsel’s full report is potentially damaging to President Donald Trump. On Wednesday, The New York Times was first to report on the frustrations
among investigators, who remained notoriously tight-lipped about their work for the duration of the nearly two-year probe. Shortly after, The Washington Post published a similar account, reporting that
some members of the Mueller team say evidence that Trump obstructed justice is “alarming and significant.”
In addition,
people familiar with the matter told the Post that
some people on Mueller’s team were “disappointed” that Barr chose not to release summaries by their office. “There was immediate
displeasure from the team when they saw how the attorney general had characterized their work instead,”
one official told the Post. (
Two government officials told the Times that, in declining to publish the summaries, Barr was attempting to guard against the release of sensitive information.)
Both reports
seem to contest Trump’s giddy proclamations that Mueller’s investigation resulted in his “Complete and Total EXONERATION,” and have stoked demands by Democrats for Mueller’s findings to be released in full. “The AG should release the FULL #MuellerReport now,” Representative Eric Swalwell, a prominent critic of the president in the Russia investigation, tweeted Wednesday evening. “His credibility is at stake.”
Last month, Barr told lawmakers that 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.” Furthermore, Barr wrote, the special counsel did not determine “one way or the other” if the president had obstructed justice, leaving it to him and Rod Rosenstein to decide on the matter. The Trump-appointed attorney general and his deputy “concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”
While it isn’t clear if any on Mueller’s team take issue with how Barr described the collusion investigation [uh, what?],
sources suggested to the Times and the Post that
investigators are “frustrated” with how the attorney general characterized their findings on obstruction. “It was much more acute than Barr suggested,” a source told the Post.
Barr, who wrote a memo critical of Mueller’s obstruction-of-justice inquiry prior to his confirmation, has faced significant criticism over the four-page summary of the nearly 400-page report, which Mueller turned in on March 22. Democrats say the Barr letter, submitted to Congress just days after Mueller finished his probe, is insufficient, and some have raised questions about Barr’s decision to clear Trump on obstruction. But the president, who has long railed against the so-called “witch hunt”, and, at times,
seemed to publicly admit that he sought to impede it, has gone on the attack against members of the media and lawmakers he’s accused of pushing the Russia probe. He initially welcomed the release of the full report, saying, “It wouldn’t bother me at all.”
But as Democrats have ramped up their efforts to obtain the report (Barr told lawmakers he would put out a redacted version by the middle of this month), Trump has seemed to change his tune, lashing out at “crazed democrats” like Jerrold Nadler, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, which approved subpoenas for the report and investigatory materials Wednesday, for requesting more information. “There is nothing we can ever give to the Democrats that will make them happy,” Trump tweeted Thursday morning, in the wake of the Times and Post reports. “This is the highest level of Presidential Harassment in the history of our Country!”
Trump’s about-face has contributed to the narrative that Mueller’s full report is more damning than Barr’s letter implies. The
apparent[to whom?] dissatisfaction by
some on Mueller’s team, and the fact that the notoriously buttoned-up team is leaking at all, will only fuel suspicions that Barr’s summary was political in nature, and Trump’s victory lap was premature. “It’s been my assumption that a 400-page report has an executive summary already, and so of course it begged the question, ‘Why did Barr feel the need to release his own summary?’” Rep. Adam Schiff said Wednesday night. “Why didn’t he release a summary produced by Bob Mueller itself, instead of trying to shape it through his own words?”
From Vanity Fair, BTW.
