Y u switch summaries?
I previously sent you a letter dated March 25, 2019, that enclosed the introduction and executive summary for each volume of the Special Counsel’s report marked with redactions to remove any information that potentially could be protected by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure that concerned declination decisions; or that related to a charged case. We also had marked an additional two sentences for review and have now confirmed that these sentences can be released publicly.
Accordingly, the enclosed documents are in a form that can be released to the public consistent with legal requirements and Department policies. I am requesting that you provide these materials to Congress and authorize their public release at this time.
As we stated in our meeting of March 5 and reiterated to the Department early in the afternoon of March 24, the introductions and executive summaries of our two-volume report accurately summarize this Office’s work and conclusions. The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office’s work and conclusions.
See what happened there? It’s subtle, at least to non-lawyers. Mueller’s team sent Barr executive summaries, and Barr put those aside and instead gave his own summary to Congress and to us. Not Mueller’s, his. His summary was a bad summary, Mueller tells him.
In short he did what it always seemed apparent he would do: he inserted himself between the Mueller team and 1. Congress 2. us. He inserted himself to block information in order to protect Trump, which is not surprising in the guy who sent Trump an unsolicited memo explaining how he could get away with all his crimes and obstructions.
We communicated that concern to the Department on the morning of March 25. There is new public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations. See Department of Justice, Press Release (May 17, 2017).
I can confirm! My confidence in the outcome of the investigations is not full at all! It’s pretty close to empty.
It’s a fucking cover up and it’s happening right in front of us.
I hope they’re nailing him right now.
I think it was Benjamin Wittes who said one option for Mueller to write a report would be to write it in the following form. Mueller anticipated redactions — some clearly necessary, some legitimate but arguable, and some maybe dubious. So Mueller “factored” the redaction “problem” into two things (“factoring” being a word I’m borrowing from my career in systems engineering):
Thing 1 — A set of chapters or sections written to be complete. And by being complete, there will be redactions.
Thing 2 — A set of shorter summaries written to pass review and convey points the investigation found significant to the public. Maybe review would make some redactions, but the summaries would minimize redactions by design.
Thing 2 is the real public-facing part of the report. Barr tried to make it disappear!!
I look forward to Mueller’s testimony.