William Barr’s “summary” of the Mueller report is already falling to pieces
Attorney General William Barr, master of the “sweep Republican issues under the rug” approach, has indicated that he hopes to have a report to submit to Congress in the coming weeks. Reports have varied over whether the submission would be the actual Mueller Report with redactions, or yet another summary prepared by Barr.
We now are being told that the report will be scrubbed, according to Eric Tucker of the AP on Wednesday afternoon, who reported that Barr is removing “classified and other information.” Everyone can understand and appreciate the “classified” information removal. That must be done for national security concerns and we cannot have the release of classified information. However, we are all puzzled by what “other information” is being referred to by Barr as being removed. This is too much. We the public, and Congress, need to know what the report says and how detailed it is. We have no idea of its length or what its findings of fact were or what its conclusions are. Having the Attorney General of the United States offer up a cold shite sandwich will not satisfy anyone.
This comes on a day in which Mark Corallo, who served for a short stint as “President” Donald Trump’s legal spokesperson, claimed that Hope Hicks lied to Special Counsel Robert Mueller about the Trump Tower meeting. We need the entire report, sans classified information, provided to Congress. Most of us are old enough to remember an entire report from Kenneth Starr about a criminal investigation into a sitting president, written partially by Brett Kavanaugh of all people, being submitted and made public and available for purchase at local bookstores.
Also, as the commercial from Rule of Law shows, many on the GOP side, including Trump, were demanding public release of the Mueller Report when they thought it would contain bad stuff- which it likely does, from the efforts to hide it. America is not interested in eating the Barr Shite Sandwich, and instead are hungry to know what the Mueller Report actually states. Anything else is proverbial BS.
Daniel is a lawyer writing and teaching about SCOTUS, and is the author of the book “The Chief Justices” about the SCOTUS as seen through the center seat.