Former independent counsel Ken Starr said on Wednesday that special counsel Robert Mueller put “too much detail” in his report on the Russia investigation.
Starr, who headed the 1990s-era Whitewater investigation that prompted the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, said this resulted in “special counsel overkill” with a wild number of footnotes.
“There’s just too much detail,” he said during a Fox News interview. “Take one little segment, the meeting of the Russian ambassador with then-Sen. Jeff Sessions during the campaign. The whole issue is, is there collusion? Well, in about a page and a half we learn everything about that meeting. It starts out with there is no suggestion of collusion, whatever. At the end of that discussion, no suggestion of — and yet we read all of this detail, elaborate footnotes. There’s some 17 footnotes. There are over 1,000 footnotes. I mean, why? The point of this report is simply to say why I prosecuted or why I didn’t prosecute. This is not a term paper.”
Mueller’s 448-report was released last month with redactions. It showed Mueller was unable to find sufficient evidence to establish criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, but also left open the question of obstruction of justice by President Trump. Attorney General William Barr said he determined that there is insufficient evidence to prove an obstruction crime, but Democrats argue that Mueller’s report, which outlines 10 instances of possible obstruction, leaves it up to Congress to investigate and decide.
While multiple efforts are underway in Congress to fight the Justice Department for the full report and underlying materials, Starr argued the process should have been as simple as the attorney general sharing a bottom-line conclusion.
“It is special counsel overkill,” he said. “Special counsels and independent counsels go the extra, extra mile to be thorough. It’s an occupational hazard.”
The type of “highly detailed” report that Starr said he authored is not appropriate anymore. “We simply want to restore the Justice Department traditions,” he said.
Starr also criticized Mueller on Tuesday for the special counsel’s letter that argued Barr’s four-page summary of the principal conclusions of the Russia investigation “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the 22-month endeavor. Starr said Mueller’s “whiny” letter to Barr, which leaked to the press last week, was an “unforgivable sin.”
