Bill Barr's newest attempt to control the Mueller report narrative looks like a big favor to Trump

Every step Attorney General Bill Barr has taken in the handling of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation has been, it appears, to help President Donald Trump. And on the day a redacted version of the Mueller report is supposed to be made public — Thursday — he appears poised to do more to help the president.

The Justice Department confirmed Wednesday that Barr will be giving a press conference about the report at 9:30 a.m. Eastern on Thursday.

It's not yet clear when the report itself will be released, other than sometime in the morning. But no matter when it is released, Barr's press conference appears to be planned to fall before reporters have had sufficient time to make much sense of the nearly 400-page report.

That will give him the opportunity to frame the report to support the narrative he wants to push — while also avoiding many of the tough questions that could be generated if journalists had enough time to make sense of it.

"Here's to hoping reporters get several hours with the Mueller Report before AG Bill Barr's presser at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow," said PBS NewsHour's Yamiche Alcindor. "It's going to be super tough to ask questions about a report that reporters haven't had time to digest."

Toronto Starr's Daniel Dale said: "If there's going to be a Barr news conference, it'd be ideal to have it several hours after/the day after the release of the report, giving journalists a chance to read the thing and develop informed questions. This does not seem to be Barr's plan."

"Yeah this is pretty transparently a spin job, since they'll be filling a huge knowledge vacuum," said MSNBC's Chris Hayes.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is also expected to be at the press conference.

However, it seems Mueller will not be there, despite the fact that he has by far the most credibility to discuss the report and the events surrounding it than Rosenstein and Barr.