Attorney General William Barr’s summary outlining the Mueller report’s findings is not what undermined the public’s confidence in its conclusions,” Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) argued on Fox and Friends Wednesday. “Mueller killed any chance of full public confidence when he put Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and Andrew Weissmann on the special counsel team,” he said.
“Bob Barr invited Mueller to review the four-page notice that he sent to Congress, but Mueller said, ‘no thanks,'” Ratcliff pointed out.
“Then after the letter became public, Bob Mueller apparently had a problem with it. The reason he has a problem with it is he’s afraid it will undermine the ‘full public confidence’ of the public in his conclusions,” the congressman continued.
“Memo to Bob,” Ratcliffe added, cutting to the chase: “when he put Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Andrew Weissmann on the special counsel team and he staffed the special counsel team with folks that had supported only the Democrats, and when he himself agreed to investigate Donald Trump as the special counsel two days after he interviewed to work for Donald Trump as FBI Director and didn’t get the job — when he did all of those things — he killed any chance that there was going to be for full confidence in his conclusions.”
Barr’s 4-page letter outlining the Mueller report’s findings isn’t what undermined “full public confidence” in his conclusions.
Mueller killed any chance of full public confidence when he put Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and Andrew Weissmann on the special counsel team… pic.twitter.com/rwDUNK2nGV
— John Ratcliffe (@RepRatcliffe) May 1, 2019
House Judiciary Democrats Tuesday morning released the full letter Special Counsel Robert Mueller sent to Attorney General William Barr on March 27, in which he complained that the attorney general’s summary “did not fully capture the context, nature and substance” of the 448-page report his team worked on for more than two years.
After watching the media put the worst possible spin on his investigation for nearly two years, Mueller expressed frustration with Barr’s summary because of how it was being spun by the media.
BREAKING: Read Special Counsel Mueller’s letter to AG Barr: “The summary letter … did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of the Office’s work and conclusions.” pic.twitter.com/4IhNTJgKGy
— NBC News (@NBCNews) May 1, 2019
During his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday morning, Barr testified that he had asked Mueller’s office to produce the report to the Department of Justice in a form that would have allowed the 6(e) (grand jury) classified material to be readily redacted in order to expedite its public release. The special counsel, he testified, did not indicate that this would be a problem, yet the report came to him without the notations.
Because Team Mueller failed to identify the classified material, the DOJ had to spend the next few weeks redacting the grand jury and classified material. During that time period, Mueller wanted the Special Counsel’s “enclosed materials” spinning his report to be released. Barr, to his credit, refused.
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