Attorney General Barr: Justice Department To Release Mueller Report ‘By Mid-April, If Not Sooner’
The Department of Justice will release special counsel Robert Mueller’s report “by mid-April, if not sooner,” according to Attorney General William Barr.
Barr wrote in a letter to Congress that there are “no plans to submit the report to the White House” before its release, adding that the document is “nearly 400 pages long,” according to Politico. The Justice Department will redact sensitive information, the attorney general added.
As previously reported by The Inquisitr, Mueller wrapped up his almost two-year investigation into Russian election interference and related matters, submitting his final report to the attorney general. Neither the public nor the Congress has seen Mueller’s report, only Barr’s brief memo, in which the attorney general — directly quoting Robert Mueller — wrote that the “investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
While Trump may have been cleared of collusion and conspiracy, he has not been cleared of obstruction, at least not by Mueller, who appears to have left the decision up to the attorney general. The Democrats have been pressuring Barr to release the full report as soon as possible, with some doubling down on conspiracy allegations, despite the lack of evidence. House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff vowed to take legal action, threatening both Mueller and Barr with subpoenas.
NBC News, which obtained Barr’s letter to Congress, reports that the attorney general is working together with the special counsel’s office to determine what to redact. Barr also said that his earlier memo should not be described as a “summary” of Mueller’s report since he was not looking to summarize the special counsel’s findings. He wrote that the public deserves to — and will — see the full document.
“Everyone will soon be able to read it on their own. I do not believe it would be in the public’s interest for me to attempt to summarize the full report or to release it in serial or piecemeal fashion.”
The attorney general also volunteered to testify before the Senate and House Judiciary Committees in early May. According to The New York Times, apart from the report itself, Barr will also let Congress have a look at all the additional documents pertaining to Mueller’s investigation.
BREAKING: AG Barr says Mueller report to be released in mid-April in new letter https://t.co/tkKuMFcQv6 pic.twitter.com/kiAjNMcTaR
— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) March 29, 2019
This decision does not come as a surprise, given that even President Donald Trump has suggested that he wants the public to see the full report.
“I don’t mind, I mean, frankly, I told the House, ‘If you want, let them see it,'” the president recently said, according to The Washington Post.
