Where’s the full report, Mr. Barr?
FRED WERTHEIMER’S WEEKLY NOTE | April 4, 2019
“Congress must receive the complete Mueller report and accompanying documents. Nothing less can be accepted by Congress or the American people.”
A Day of Action is being held around the country today to demand that Attorney General William Barr turn over to Congress the complete report prepared by Special Counsel Robert Mueller along with the underlying documents that support the report.
More than 300 protest events will be held by citizens throughout the nation who are part of the Nobody is Above the Law network, organized by a large coalition of groups that have worked to protect the Mueller investigation.
The nationwide protests have been triggered by Barr’s failure to meet the deadline set by the House Judiciary Committee to provide the complete Mueller report to the Committee.
I will join House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler, Senator Richard Blumenthal, and others as a speaker at the protest being held across from the White House at 5 p.m. today.
In a letter sent to the Justice Department before he became Attorney General, Barr prejudged the issue of whether President Trump was guilty of obstruction of justice, attacking Mueller’s obstruction theory as “fatally misconceived” without any knowledge of the work of the Special Counsel.
Thus, Barr should have been recused from the case at the outset, and had zero credibility to exonerate Trump from committing obstruction of justice.
Nevertheless, in a four-page summary of the report sent to Congress, Barr did precisely that. He exonerated Trump after the Mueller report explicitly refused to exonerate him or reach a conclusion about whether a crime had occurred.
In 1998, Special Prosecutor Ken Starr who investigated President Bill Clinton turned over his 445-page report and 36 sealed boxes of grand jury material to Congress. There is no basis for Barr to do anything less with the Mueller report.
Congress must receive the complete Mueller report and accompanying documents. Nothing less can be accepted by Congress or the American people.
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Fred Wertheimer is the Founder and President of Democracy 21, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to strengthen our democracy and ensure the integrity and fairness of government decisions and elections. See previous Notes from Fred here.
