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AG Barr Defends Handling of Mueller Report

By Masood Farivar May 01, 2019

U.S. Attorney General William Barr appeared before Congress on Wednesday to defend his handling of special counsel Robert Mueller's recent report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election and Barr's controversial determination that President Donald Trump did not obstruct the investigation.

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee for the first time since Mueller concluded his two-year investigation on March 22, Barr faced tough questions from Democrats about his decision to release a four-page summary of the report shortly after the investigation concluded but to hold off on making public the full report for several weeks.

"It was my baby whether or not to disclose it to the public," he said. "I determined that it was in the public interest for the department to announce the investigation's bottom-line conclusions, that is, the determination whether a provable crime has been committed or not. I did not believe that it was in the public interest to release additional portions of the report in piecemeal fashion, leading to public debate over incomplete information."

Much of the hearing focused on a letter Mueller wrote to Barr on March 27 in which he complained about the summary letter to Congress. Mueller wrote that the summary "did not fully capture the context, nature and substance of this office's work and conclusions," and he urged the attorney general to release the report's executive summaries.

In response, Barr said he turned down the special counsel's request because he wanted to make the full report public as soon as possible. In a subsequent phone call with Mueller, the special counsel expressed concern about how the report was being portrayed by the media, but he did not characterize it as misleading or inaccurate, Barr said.

The Washington Post first published a story on the Mueller letter late Tuesday. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee released a copy of it on Wednesday.

The special counsel wrote in his final report that the evidence was not sufficient to charge any Trump campaign member with conspiring with Russian government representatives to meddle in the 2016 election, but the office did not draw conclusions about whether the president had obstructed justice.

Barr summarized the report's two principal findings in his March 24 letter to Congress. While Mueller had not reached a conclusion on the question of obstruction, Barr wrote that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had examined the evidence and determined that it was not enough to support obstruction charges against Trump.

Barr defended his decision. Asked by the committee chairman, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, whether he "felt good" about his decision, Barr responded, "Yes."

But Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the ranking Democrat on the panel, said the Mueller report "contained substantial evidence of misconduct" by Trump.

The Mueller report examined 11 instances of potential obstruction of justice by Trump, including an attempt in June 2017, shortly after Mueller's appointment, to get the special counsel fired. Those efforts came to light when a redacted version of the 448-page report was released to the public earlier this month.

Barr was also widely criticized for holding a news conference to discuss the findings of the Mueller report hours before either members of Congress or journalists had a chance to read it.

The attorney general told reporters that it exonerated Trump of colluding with Moscow and said that later, after assuming power, Trump had "no corrupt intent" to obstruct the probe.

Barr, a Trump appointee, said the president "took no act that in fact deprived" Mueller of "documents and witnesses necessary to complete his investigation."

With the release of the full report, committee Republicans said the issue had become moot. But Democrats vowed to summon Mueller to testify before Congress to answer their questions. Barr said he had no objections to Mueller's testifying.