President Trump’s nominee for attorney general, William Barr, would allow Robert Mueller to finish the Russia investigation without interference. Not only that, but if confirmed as attorney general, he would make public as much of the special counsel’s findings as possible.
“On my watch,” Barr said in his prepared opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday, Mueller “will be allowed to complete his work.” He continued:
Anticipation has been building for so long with the special counsel that the significance of this statement could easily be missed. Despite all the hysteria on cable news, there has never been any guarantee that Congress, let alone the public, would ever see a final report.
“At the conclusion of the Special Counsel’s work,” reads the original commission that established the investigation, “he or she shall provide the Attorney General with a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the Special Counsel.”
If confirmed, Barr would be the only one with access to this confidential report. He is under no obligation to show these finding to Congress — even if Mueller was to uncover an impeachable offense.
Barr is only required to come forward if Mueller goes off the rails, if Mueller proposed a course of action that is “so inappropriate or unwarranted under established Departmental practices that it should not be pursued.”
This current legal framework makes Barr’s promise that much more significant. Regardless of what Mueller finds, whether it incriminates or absolves Trump, keeping the final report secret would keep the country in an unsustainable fever pitch. Transparency is the only to end the hysteria.
