President Trump and the Justice Department shot back at reports in which anonymous sources said members of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team are frustrated with the way Attorney General William Barr portrayed the findings of their years-long investigation in a four-page summary.
The reports published by New York Times and the Washington Post immediately emboldened Democrats who are seeking access to the full report along with the underlying documents.
In a statement provided to the Washington Examiner, DOJ spokesperson Kerri Kupec said “every page of the ‘confidential report’ provided to Attorney General Barr on March 22, 2019, was marked ‘May Contain Material Protected Under Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)’ — a law that protects confidential grand jury information — and therefore could not be publicly released.”
Both the New York Times report, headlined “Some on Mueller’s Team Say Report Was More Damaging Than Barr Revealed”; and the Washington Post, headlined “Limited information Barr has shared about Russia investigation frustrated some on Mueller’s team,” relied solely on anonymous sources questioning Barr’s handling of the Mueller report.
The New York Times reported some members of the Mueller team felt that Barr “failed to adequately portray the findings of their inquiry.” The piece relied on anonymous sourcing from “government officials and others familiar with their simmering frustrations.”
The Washington Post also relied on anonymous sources “familiar with the matter,” writing that “members of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team have told associates they are frustrated with the limited information Attorney General William P. Barr has provided.”
Calling the reports “alarming,” Senate Intelligence Committee vice chairman Mark Warner announced he would be going to the Senate floor Thursday afternoon to push for the passage of a resolution “expressing the sense of Congress that the report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller should be made available to the public and to Congress.” The House voted last month by a 420-0 margin to release Mueller’s report to the public.
The DOJ emphasized Barr is being helped by Mueller in his effort to ensure private grand jury testimony, classified material, or other sensitive information is not inappropriately revealed. “The Department continues to work with the Special Counsel on appropriate redactions to the report so that it can be released to Congress and the public,” Kupec said.
The DOJ also defended Barr’s decision to provide a letter to Congress just a couple days after receiving and reviewing the lenghty report from Mueller. “Given the extraordinary public interest in the matter, the Attorney General decided to release the report’s bottom-line findings and his conclusions immediately — without attempting to summarize the report — with the understanding that the report itself would be released after the redaction process,” Kupec said.
“As the Attorney General stated in his March 29th letter to Chairman Graham and Chairman Nadler, he does not believe the report should be released in ‘serial or piecemeal fashion’,” she added.
Trump also raged against the Times, accusing the outlet of not using “legitimate sources.”
The New York Times had no legitimate sources, which would be totally illegal, concerning the Mueller Report. In fact, they probably had no sources at all! They are a Fake News paper who have already been forced to apologize for their incorrect and very bad reporting on me!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 4, 2019
Barr previously told Congress that he expects to complete his review and to present the redacted version of the Mueller report to Congress “by mid-April, if not sooner,” noting that “everyone will soon be able to read it on their own.” He said he would not be giving the White House a sneak peak beforehand, precluding the possibility of executive privilege.
In his initial March 22 letter to Congress, Barr revealed that Mueller would not be charging any Trump associates with criminal collusion with Russia. “The Special Counsel’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election,” he wrote.
Barr also wrote Mueller declined to determine whether Trump obstructed justice, and Barr said he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded there was insufficient evidence to show the president committed a crime.
Democrats became immediately frustrated with Barr’s four-page summary of Mueller’s report that Trump and his allies claim provided him exoneration.
The House Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday to subpoena Mueller’s full report along with the underlying documents and calls have been mounting among top congressional and political leaders to get the report out to the public quickly.
