‘Partisan’ Staff Wrote And Leaked Mueller Letter, Claims Former U.S. Attorney

Special Counsel Robert Mueller officially finalized his probe into Russian election interference in late March. On March 24, Attorney General William Barr published his own summary of Mueller’s final report, revealing that the special counsel had found no Trump-Russia conspiracy, according to The New York Times.

Mueller refused to exonerate Trump of obstruction of justice, however, without charging the president with the crime. This prompted intense speculation, which hasn’t died down despite the fact that a redacted version of the Mueller report has since been made available to the public.

A lot has happened since. As previously reported by The Inquisitr, Barr has testified before Congress, amid intense accusations that he is protecting President Donald Trump. Virtually all Democrats have accused the attorney general of bias, urging him to step down, and threatening to take legal action if he refuses to do so.

Fueling the attacks on Barr is a letter authored by the special counsel’s office. On May 1, as Vox reported, the letter — dated March 27 — was leaked to the press. Addressed to Attorney General William Barr, the document accuses the top lawyer of failing to fully capture “the context, nature, and substance of this Office’s work and conclusions.”

But Robert Mueller’s letter was not authored by Robert Mueller, and he did not personally leak it to the press, according to former U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy. In an opinion piece penned for the conservative National Review, McCarthy accused “partisan” staffers of writing, and leaking the letter, The Washington Examiner reports.

The rift between the special counsel and Attorney General William Barr is too obvious to ignore. https://t.co/nGKZpkWC2I

— Slate (@Slate) May 4, 2019

As the publication notes, in his column, McCarthy made the case that the letter had been purposely leaked to The Washington Post ahead of Barr’s testimony in order to influence the hearing. According to the former U.S. attorney, staff from the special counsel’s office decided to write a letter because it “makes for much better leak material.”

In his National Review piece, McCarthy argued that Mueller — who has been close friends with William Barr for nearly three decades — would have called Barr on the phone to air his grievances, instead of sending a formal letter. McCarthy also argued that the fact that Barr gave Mueller an opportunity to review his summary ahead of publication — which Mueller denied — speaks volumes about the relationship between the two men.

“Partisan” Mueller staffers are to blame, according to Andrew McCarthy.

The staffers “wanted to charge Trump with obstruction based on the creative (i.e., wayward) theory they had been pursuing — namely, that a president can be indicted for obstruction based on the exercise of his constitutional prerogatives if prosecutors (including prosecutors who are active supporters of the president’s political opposition) decide he had corrupt intent.”