Defiled hard
by Tom Sullivan
Why did Barr do it?
Last night's news that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III wrote to Attorney General William Barr to complain about Barr's four-page, non-summary summary of the special counsel's findings in the Trump-Russia investigation unleashed a flood of commentary. Left unanswered is why Barr has risked himself for Donald Trump.
Natasha Bertrand tweets, "Something I'm hearing from lots of former DOJ/FBI folks tonight is just how rare & significant it is for a DOJ official, especially an institutionalist like Mueller, to 'go to paper' like this. 'We are conditioned not to' do that, Chuck Rosenberg told me."
In the letter obtained by the Washington Post, Mueller complained that Barr's characterization of the findings “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the special counsel team's work, leaving the public with a distorted view of what the Mueller report contains. Barr's April 18 press conference describing the findings in "Trumpian language" prior to releasing the redacted report solidified the perception that Barr was Trump's new Roy Cohn.
Unnamed sources told the Post Mueller did not take issue with public discussions of the Russian investigation section of the report. Meaning Mueller is unhappy with seeing the obstruction of justice investigation into the president's campaign spun as exoneration.
Mueller followed up his letter with a fifteen-minute phone call to Barr:
Justice Department officials said Tuesday that they were taken aback by the tone of Mueller’s letter and that it came as a surprise to them that he had such concerns. Until they received the letter, they believed Mueller was in agreement with them on the process of reviewing the report and redacting certain types of information, a process that took several weeks. Barr has testified to Congress previously that Mueller declined the opportunity to review his four-page memo to lawmakers that distilled the essence of the special counsel’s findings.Barr appears to have misled Congress as well as the American people on that. The leaked letter has spurred calls for Barr's resignation or impeachment, especially if he refuses to appear before the House Judiciary Committee. One theory on the timing of the leaked letter by "we didn't know" anonymous sources is that Barr allies in the department hope to dampen the impact of his scheduled testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning at 10 a.m. EDT. Barr used strategic delay and disinformation to manage perceptions for the president's benefit before. The leaked letter will dominate the news for days and keep Democrats focused on Barr rather than on the president. (His prepared statement is here. He doubles down on his decision to declare Trump innocent.)