Republicans are pulling out all the stops to keep the public from ever seeing what Robert Mueller discovered
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27 March 2019
Robert Mueller/Screengrab
Democratic representatives in the House have set a deadline for Attorney General William Barr to turn over the full, unredacted report from special counsel Robert Mueller by April 2. However, it seems that Barr has other ideas. He’s not planning on turning anything over for “weeks,” and when he does, it will still not be the Mueller report. Also, when it comes to redactions, he’s planning on not just making his own, but allowing Trump to drag the black marker over anything he doesn’t like.
As the New York Times reports, in response to the Democratic demand, the Justice Department has stated that it “will have its own summary ready to send to lawmakers within weeks, though not months.” There’s something bigger to note here than just the unreasonable timeline. What’s being sent at the end of that waiting period isn’t the document Mueller turned over to Barr. Instead, lawmakers would be getting the Justice Department’s “own summary.” This isn’t the Mueller report. It’s the Barr letter 2.0.
Even while Donald Trump smirks about letting people see the report, Republicans are lining up to make sure Americans never see what Robert Mueller discovered. As unsatisfying as it has been to see the investigation close without indictments against those who clearly were engaged with and welcoming Russian involvement in the U.S. election, the idea that the public will never know why there were no charges—never know why “Russia, if you’re listening” and “If it's what you say, I love it” and over a dozen meetings on three continents did not represent a level of cooperation rising to conspiracy—that’s unacceptable.
But it’s the road we’re on. That’s what Mitch McConnell is doing when he declares that the public should never see any information about those who remain uncharged, because that would be “throwing innocent people under the bus.” It’s what Steny Hoyer is doing when he says the full report can’t be turned over “for security reasons.” It’s what Barr is doing when he suggests that at the end of the “weeks, not months,” the new letter he produces will still need to float through the White House first so that Trump can redact anything he wants out of “executive privilege.”
In 1998, at the end of the Whitewater investigation, the Depart of Justice placed the entire report in the public record. That was every conclusion drawn by Starr. The transcript of every testimony heard by investigators. The transcript of everything said before the grand jury. Everything. Retreating from that standard isn’t just retreating to a time before Watergate; it’s a surrender to what Barr and many other Republicans have championed all along: an all-powerful executive who truly stands above the law.
But what’s happening now isn’t the equivalent of Reno simply putting out a paper on that report declaring nothing was found. It would be Reno putting out a letter to say that on two single aspects of the real estate proceedings that originally generated the investigation, not enough information was found to create an indictment. That’s what it would take to match the narrowness of the information contained in Barr’s letter, which was carefully written to appear to be a general pass, when in fact it ignores nearly everything discovered in the investigation.
Barr’s letter does not even address the specifics of the instructions given to Mueller. Those specifics were spelled out in a memo from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to Mueller subsequent to the beginning of the investigation. That memo begins by saying that the letter authorizing Mueller as special counsel was “worded categorically in order to permit its public release without confirming specific investigations involving specific individuals.” And then it explains that “This memorandum provides a more specific description of your authority.”
And that … is practically all we know. Because the only part of that letter that has been revealed is a very small section that was uncovered in response to a court challenge by Paul Manafort.
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