March 24, 2019 was the single best day of President Trump’s presidency. Of course, that was the day when Attorney General William Barr cleared the president on campaign collusion with the Russians and on obstruction of justice, the two key subjects of special counsel Robert Mueller’s nearly two-year investigation. Trump predictably claimed vindication. Addressing reporters in front of Air Force One, he declared victory over a group of people he has long regarded as deep-state, Democrat-loving bureaucrats seeking to destroy his presidency.
Trump, though, has a problem — Barr’s top-line conclusions are not the end of the story.
Congressional Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., don’t trust the judgment of a Trump-appointee Cabinet official and want Mueller’s full, unredacted report released to the public immediately. This week, the Judiciary Committee voted to grant Nadler the authority to subpoena the report if the Justice Department stonewalls the request.
Democrats were never going to let the matter go. Just because Mueller completed his inquiry doesn’t mean Trump’s political opponents are willing to concede defeat and close the book on a story that has caused the president such visible discomfort. Apparently, a good chunk of Mueller’s own team of prosecutors and FBI agents feel the same way. Many of them are frustrated with the way Barr purportedly sanitized their findings.
A shop that was as tight-lipped as a Buddhist monk is now chirping to friends and associates about the shoddy way Barr handled their work. The Washington Post describes some of Mueller’s staff as particularly upset over the attorney general’s choice to offer his own interpretations rather than simply release the investigators’ own summaries. NBC News followed up with a report calling Mueller’s 400-page document far less black-and-white than Barr’s 4-page letter to Congress and potentially more perilous to the president. Connections between Trump campaign associates and the Russians, we are now told, were more disturbing than the “no collusion” conclusion offered up by Barr.
The obstruction of justice question was also murkier than the open-and-shut case Barr presented in his summary. If the reporting is to be believed, there was a divide in Mueller’s office about whether Trump’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey and abuse of Attorney General Jeff Sessions were grounds for an obstruction charge.
With Mueller’s work still being poured over by the AG’s office, none of us can know for sure. There is a genuine difference of opinion in the legal community about whether a sitting president can even be charged with obstructing justice. Can Trump be liable to an obstruction offense for terminating a subordinate when he technically has the constitutional power as chief executive to fire anyone he likes or basically any reason he likes? These are very difficult legal questions to consider.
They are made more difficult today, however, with all of the conjecture swirling around town about what may or may not be in Mueller’s report. Until Barr does the right thing and declassifies the full document to the public with minimal redactions, we are just twisting in the wind.
President Trump may believe he’s exonerated and in the clear legally and politically. But in the weeks since Barr’s delivered his conclusions to Congress, the Mueller investigation remains very much a live issue for the White House.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
