WTF Just Happened Today

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

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1/ Robert Mueller twice objected to Attorney General William Barr's four-page summary to Congress, saying the memo "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office's work and conclusions." Barr's summary claimed that the Mueller investigation "did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government" and that Mueller "did not draw a conclusion — one way or the other —as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction." Mueller, however, sent a letter to Barr on March 27th – three days after Barr issued his summary – citing "public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation" that "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." Mueller asked the Justice Department to release the 448-page report's introductions and executive summaries, making some initial suggested redactions that Mueller believed would "alleviate the misunderstandings that have arisen and would answer congressional and public questions about the nature and outcome of our investigation." Mueller's office first informed the Justice Department of their concerns on March 25th, the day after Barr released his summary clearing Trump of obstruction of justice. On April 9, Barr testified to Congress that Mueller declined an opportunity to review his summary of "principal conclusions." Barr also previously testified that he did not know if Mueller supported his conclusion on the question of possible obstruction. (Washington Post / New York Times / NBC News / New York Times / Politico / CNN / The Guardian)

• READ: Mueller's letter to Barr. (New York Times / Washington Post)

2/ Barr testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, answering questions about Mueller's report for the first time since publicly releasing a redacted version of the report. Barr blamed the media for "reading too much" into his initial summary. He insisted that he did not misrepresent Mueller's report and downplayed the significance of Mueller's multiple complaints that the summary did not capture the report's full context. Barr called Mueller's complaint letter "a bit snitty" and questioned why Mueller's team investigated instances of potential obstruction of justice if he knew he couldn't charge Trump with a crime under Justice Department restrictions. Barr, however, admitted that he had not reviewed all of the evidence before declaring it "not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction of justice offense." Barr also claimed that Trump had "fully cooperated" with the investigation and that Trump's multiple attempts to remove Mueller for alleged "conflicts" were not the same as firi...

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