Monica Lewinsky broke her silence on Attorney General William Barr’s four-page letter summarizing special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, which has yet to be released to Congress or the public.
She reacted to a tweet from University of Southern California law professor Orin Kerr with three words.
“Imagine if the Starr Report had been provided only to President Clinton’s Attorney General, Janet Reno, who then read it privately and published a 4-page letter based on her private reading stating her conclusion that President Clinton committed no crimes,” Kerr tweeted.
“if. fucking. only,” Lewinsky said in response.
if. fucking. only. https://t.co/6N7SFiKRln
— Monica Lewinsky (@MonicaLewinsky) March 27, 2019
More than two decades ago, independent counsel Ken Starr investigated the Whitewater case that eventually led to the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton for lying under oath about his affair with Lewinsky, who was a White House intern. Starr’s final report was released to the public and was published in a book called The Starr Report: The Findings of Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr on President Clinton and the Lewinsky Affair in 1998.
Clinton was impeached by the House over charges related to the cover-up of his with Lewinsky, but was acquitted by the Senate in 1999.
On Sunday, Barr shared a summary of Mueller’s findings with Congress and claimed the 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.”
On the issue of obstruction of justice, Barr quoted Mueller saying “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said they then determined there “is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”
House Democrats are demanding the Justice Department submit to Congress the Mueller report and underlying documents by next week. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, who had dinner with the attorney general on Tuesday, told Fox News that Barr told him he plans to release a version of the Mueller report to the public in “weeks, not months.”
