Mueller: Letter to Barr says Summary, “Failed to Capture Context, Nature & Substance” of Report

Yup Eric Holder was a scumbag and a terrible Attorney General... good thing he isn’t in office now.

 

The part where you no nothing and just pull stuff out of your ass - basically you make up the law as you go - you're truly a pigeon of Donald Trump. Always sad to see a mind that can't think for itself.

 

a fairly long and sympathetic defense of Barr from Jack Goldsmith on the Lawfare blog:

The enormous criticism of Barr’s March 24 letter seems greatly exaggerated to me. The letter purported to state the Mueller report’s “principal conclusions.” It did that, and it specifically noted Mueller’s damning conclusion, which the public later learned Barr thought was inappropriate, that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

Three days later, on March 27, Mueller wrote to Barr that his “summary letter . . . did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the special counsel’s “work and conclusions.” The special counsel has no authority over public release and no continuing jurisdiction in the matter, but I see no problem with him making the request to Barr (though I hope it was not the previously disciplined Mueller team that leaked the letter). In any event, Mueller was quite right that Barr’s letter did not fully capture the context, nature and substance of Mueller’s 400-page report. It would have been very hard for anything short of immediate full disclosure of the report to do that.

Barr decided in his discretion simply to state Mueller’s bottom-line legal conclusions and then as soon as possible put out the whole report. Mueller wanted a different preliminary release, and he apparently designed his introduction and executive summary with that in mind. But under the regulations, to repeat, this was entirely Barr’s decision to make, not Mueller’s. Barr initial minimalist approach strikes me as reasonable given (i) Mueller’s odd legal and judgmental reasoning in Volume II, (ii) Barr’s clear intention to publish as soon as possible as much of the report as possible, and (iii) Barr’s belief, made clear in his testimony, that legal decisions are the essence of Justice Department responsibilities.

The day after Barr read Mueller’s letter and spoke with Mueller about his concerns, he made clear to the public what he was doing, and why, and he sought to address Mueller’s concerns short of complying with Mueller’s request. Barr stated in a letter to Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. Jerry Nadler that the press had “mischaracterize[ed]” his March 24 letter as a “summary of the Special Counsel’s investigation and report.” He added:

Barr was under enormous pressure from all sides to say something about Mueller’s report as soon as he received it. He claims he asked Mueller if he wanted to review the March 24 letter, and says that Mueller declined. Barr surely could have worded the March 24 letter more carefully with more time. But I expect that anything he said short of exactly what Mueller wanted him to say would have attracted furious criticism. The decision was clearly Barr’s to make and he had good reasons for what should be disclosed and when, and he explained them publicly.

In this light, and especially in light of subsequent events, I fail to see how Barr warrants the super-harsh personal criticism he has received over the letter. Those subsequent events include (i) publicly clarifying that he, Barr, did not purport to capture or summarize everything in Mueller’s report; (ii) working around the clock to get the relatively lightly redacted report made public—something Barr had no legal duty to do; (iii) testifying twice before Congress to explain his reasoning; and (iv) allowing Mueller to testify before Congress if he wants. These are not the actions of a man trying to mischaracterize the report or hide the ball. And they cured any objections that might have properly been lodged against the quickly written original letter.​

https://www.lawfareblog.com/thoughts-barr-and-mueller-report

 

Excellent blog. I will add that most of the uproar over Barr from the left and the media is due to trying to get in front of the coming storm when the beginnings of the investigation are exposed as Barr has promised to do. They are attacking Barr's character as a preemptive strike before everything comes out. The people parroting the left and media's attack on Barr are the ones stuck in their echo chambers(just where they want them) like they have been from the beginning of this entire ordeal.

 

This is giving Barr an awful lot of the benefit of the doubt, when I don't think he deserves it. He comes out with his non-summary summary letter that seems to paint the picture that Mueller found no evidence of any wrongdoing regarding the President during his investigation. He also quotes the fragment of a sentence that, in my opinion, gives a misleading representation of that section and the sentence. Here is the sentence:

“Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

That gives a lot more context to what the report actually found, but for some reason Barr decided to only use the second part of the sentence. It is pretty obvious why.

He is also given summaries from Mueller's team, but refuses to release them because he doesn't want a debate? But he made sure to come out immediately and declare that Trump had been completely exonerated of "Collusion," which despite not being a legal term also was misleading (as you can see from the sentence above.) He then makes a judgement on whether or not there was obstruction of justice, without even looking at the underlying evidence, in a very short time period (although he says he was informed and up to date on all of these issues.)

Barr knew exactly what he was doing and it worked. I remember getting on this forum the day his letter came out and it was like a field day for all of the Trump supporters here. Despite warnings to wait for the full report to come out, the line "No Collusion, No Obstruction, Total Exoneration" was thrown around. In the real world Trump paraded his "victory" for about two weeks, until of course the actual report came out. Then once the actual report comes out, all of a sudden it turns out that it was done by a bunch of "Angry Democrats" and somehow clears the President of all wrongdoing, but at the same time isn't trustworthy because of the so-called "Angry Democrats" who wrote it?

And through all of this, the guy who was in charge of writing the report felt the need to contact Barr multiple times, telling him that he felt the information wasn't being represented properly or was being misconstrued to the public (despite what Barr says about it only being about the media's portrayal, Mueller's letter doesn't mention the media.) But sure, let's take Barr's word for everything and give him the benefit of the doubt and somehow try to make him into a sympathetic figure...

 

What they are doing is calling Barr out for being dishonest. It is what anyone and everyone should do. Barr was dishonest and lied about the report.

 

Are you seriously going to parrot that?? Oh well, that is your prerogative. Some of you have wrongfully thought Trump was guilty from the start despite the facts so it is understandable your judgement is impaired to the point that all you can do is keep on parroting the media like you have from the beginning.

 

How many times did Trump ask his people to lie and obstruct justice? How many people on Trump's campaign and in his administration lied about contacts with Russians? Facts are inconvenient I know.

Also inconvenient, did Mueller see Trump's tax returns? Did Mueller look at Trump's bank accounts? Trump owes Deutsche Bank over $300 million and has received $2 billion in loans since 2000. Deutsche Bank is linked to Russian money laundering. (weird huh?) Trump has an excellent memory according to him but did not answer an incredible amount of questions from Mueller. Trump's own lawyers said Trump could not answer questions in person because he would perjure himself. (whaaaat?) Trump's children refused to answer questions. Trump's campaign manager is going to jail and so is his personal lawyer. Mueller basically laid out all the information for Congress to decide whether there was collusion or obstruction. Why is Trump trying to block Mueller from testifying? Why is he refusing to provide his tax returns like every other President for the last 40 years. Don't let the facts get in the way of your rants.

You should be embarrassed by your own behavior, setting aside your principles and morals in supporting Trump for the sake of power. Trump is a pathological lying white nationalist piece of garbage human being and people like yourself are his enablers. Y'all are completely shameless.

 

That is a lie.

 

All that I've asked from the beginning was to let the facts come out.

I'm not parroting anything. Do you not know when you've been lied to? You understand that what he said didn't summarize what was in the Mueller report right? Even if you haven't read it, I think enough has been talked about that you would know that. If you'd read it, you would definitely know that.

Here are some facts. These don't have a bias. They are just facts. If I left anything out the you beleive justifies Barr, then please let me know. I will try and read it with an open mind.

1. Barr gets the Mueller report, Mueller's summary and releases his own summary.
2. Mueller sends a letter telling Barr that his summary did not accurately portray what was in his report.
3. Barr told congress he no knowledge that Mueller or his team were unhappy with his summary.
4. The letter from Mueller becomes public.

If there is anything at all in that that you disagree with, or if you think I left something out that was essential to defending Barr, please let me know. All I ever ask for is support for you statements and reasoning. I've listed mine. We might not ever agree and that's fine, but I would love to know on what you are basing your ideas.

 

Ok so what’s your gripe? Barr didn’t accurately portray a report that he knew would be and has been made public? Newsflash! The report is no secret!

 

You are asking why I'm upset the Attorney General of the United States lied to congress and mislead the public about a report of the leader of the United States and the free world because the report would eventually come out?

 

Is that your answer? Seriously man just stop and think about what you’re saying. Your party has lost all credibility with their endless accusations and slandering of people, not just Trump that it’s just a sad spectacle at this point. I know it has to be hard to just keep wanting something so bad and coming up empty but damn.

 

No, you are wrong.

 

Bizzaro world.

 

They really do appear to be in need of psychiatric help at this point. I am not being flippant.

 

What? I was talking about actual facts. Are you going to resort to calling Democrats names and not dealing with the actual facts here, or would you rather discuss the actual facts of the case?