Dan Abrams, chief legal analyst for ABC News, marveled at the extraordinary nature of a federal judge’s rebuke to Attorney General William Barr.
D.C. District Court Judge Reggie Walton on Tuesday second-guessed the redactions in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report and asked the Justice Department to give him an unredacted version in order to see if more details should be made public. The DOJ later issued a statement dismissing the court’s assertions.
Abrams, in an appearance on The Beat with Ari Melber Friday evening, said the judge’s rebuke of Barr was insulting.
“What makes this so striking, as you’re discussing, is that the judge isn’t just saying, look, I want to review this, and I want to decide,” he began. “The judge is saying, ‘I don’t trust the attorney general because of what we’ve seen so far, and as a result, I’m going to need to review even the things you have told me there are reasons you have redacted. But I don’t trust you, so I’m going to have to review it myself.'”
He also noted that the judge had been appointed to different benches by Republican presidents, including Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush.
“We see, a lot of times, prosecutors get rebuked by judges, right? They say, ‘This should have been turned over to the defense,’ or ‘You guys messed up here.’ But to say you simply cannot trust the attorney general of the United States,” Abrams added. “The judge is saying, ‘I’m concerned you politicized the process.’ There is nothing more insulting to the attorney general of the United States, not to say you’re wrong, not to say I’m not sure I can trust you, but you know what, I think you may have politicized the process. That’s big.”
Walton argued that he has “grave concerns about the objectivity of the process that preceded the public release of the redacted version of the Mueller Report” and its “impacts on the Justice Department’s subsequent justifications.”
“The original redactions in the public report were made by Department attorneys, in consultation with senior members of special counsel Mueller’s team, prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Offices, and members of the Intelligence Community,” DOJ spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said. “In response to FOIA requests, the entire report was then reviewed by career attorneys, including different career attorneys with expertise in FOIA cases — a process in which the Attorney General played no role. There is no basis to question the work or good faith of any of these career Department lawyers.”
