More on Barr After His Senate Testimony Yesterday

If you've been reading this blog these past few weeks you already know that I've generally been a defender of Attorney General William Barr, especially following the issuance of the Mueller Report on Russian interference in our 2016 elections to his office in March.  He and his Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein went over it and produced a four-page summary which stated that there wasn't enough uncovered evidence to pursue a conspiracy charge against Donald Trump or his campaign...and that after Mueller left any prosecutorial questions about his obstruction of the investigations to Barr's office he had decided not to pursue any charges of obstruction.  But since sitting presidents are not subject to criminal prosecution while in office and that the avenue for dealing with lawbreaking on the presidential level is through the Congressional impeachment process as mandated by the U.S. Constitution, I felt that the integrity in Barr's decision-making came down to whether or not he would actually release the Mueller Report...after careful redaction to protect classified data, grand juries, and innocent third parties...to Congress and the American public.  This he did...so why do I now have a few beefs with him?

Soon after Barr released his summary, Robert Mueller had sent him a letter complaining that the Attorney General, while not straying from the facts, had distorted the nature of the report.  Of course, I realize, like previous attorneys general from earlier presidents, this one is also naturally biased toward protecting the administration he serves.  But in his testimony yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Barr made the claim that if a president believes that an investigation of his own activities is unfair and that he is innocent, then he has the right to stop it.  So I ask...as did Senator Schumer during his opening remarks on the Senate floor this morning...when is a president ever going to state that he is NOT innocent during an ongoing investigation?  This sounds like a roadmap to a dictatorship. Mueller had also revealed his disappointment that Barr, when provided by the Mueller team with their own summaries...already devoid of any redactable material...refused to release them.  I'm looking forward to hearing Robert Mueller testify before the House Judiciary Committee to hear his take on things, but I think there is something I can personally do about all this...

Like the overwhelming majority of American people I haven't read the Mueller report, his team's summaries...or even Attorney General Barr's initial four-page synopsis.  But that's about to end as I am set to go though it all...the results should be interesting and at least I won't be babbling here about second-hand information and innuendos...

A few minutes later: okay, I just read the initial March 24th summary by Barr...it seemed fine to me.  Excuse me now while I read Mueller's "protest" letter...

The March 27th letter from Mueller to Barr was brief and pointed, charging that the Attorney General's summary "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office's work and conclusions."  He then disclosed that he had two days earlier sent Barr an already redacted report along with "executive summaries" for each section.  Mueller urged Barr to immediately release this report to Congress and the public.  Instead, Barr ignored Mueller's urging and worked on his own redaction, delaying its release until April 18th.  And herein lies the problem as I see it: nearly four weeks of Trump running around boasting of being "completely exonerated" and the semi-comatose American public compliantly lapping it all up.  Well, I guess the next step is for me to actually read the full report itself...only then will I be able to comment in an informed manner on the alleged discrepancies between Barr's summary and Mueller's intent.  But this will take a wee bit longer to accomplish: it's nearly 400 pages long, I hear...