Former independent counsel Ken Starr said special counsel Robert Mueller’s “whiny” letter to Attorney General William Barr regarding his summary of the Russia investigation was an “unforgivable sin.”
Starr, who headed the 1990s-era Whitewater investigation that prompted the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, blasted Mueller’s letter that argued Barr’s four-page summary of the Russia investigation “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the investigation.
The letter was leaked Tuesday ahead of Barr’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday.
“His letter, that was then leaked on the very eve of Bill Barr’s testimony, was essentially, I believe, an unfair, whiny complaint,” Starr said in an interview with Fox New’s Martha MacCallum Monday.
“Here comes Bob Mueller with this letter which is then leaked,” Starr said. “He, Bob Mueller, badly injured this attorney general and the attorney general didn’t deserve that but, of course, that created its own huge firestorm including suggestions that the attorney general was totally mischaracterizing the report and so forth.”
Barr has drawn scrutiny and scorn from Democrats, who want him to step down because they claim he isn’t trustworthy. Barr appeared before lawmakers on a House Appropriations subcommittee last month and denied having knowledge of whether the special counsel’s team was irritated by his summary, as media reports indicated.
But in Mueller’s letter, dated three days after the release of the summary on March 27, Mueller claimed the summary didn’t provide the complete context and substance of the investigation.
Mueller’s investigation concluded that the Trump campaign did not collude with the Kremlin during the 2016 election. However, it did not make a determination on whether Trump obstructed justice. Barr claims there is insufficient evidence to prove an obstruction crime, but Democrats in Congress want to investigate further and decide.
