Attorney general nominee William Barr on Tuesday wouldn’t commit to telling Congress about all of the deletions he could make in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian election interference and related matters. Mueller will submit his report to the attorney general — whoever that is — and the attorney general will then have the authority to pass a report on to Congress.
When asked by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) if he would commit to “explaining to us what the reasons are for your deleting any information that the special counsel includes that you are preventing us or the public from seeing,” Barr said that would be his “intent.”
“I don’t know what kind of report is being prepared, I have no idea, and I have no idea what Acting Attorney General Rosenstein has discussed with special counsel Mueller,” Barr added. (He later corrected himself: the acting attorney general is actually currently Matt Whitaker.)
The attorney general nominee said he would check in with Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to “see what’s being contemplated, and what they’ve agreed to, and what their interpretation — what game plan they have in mind,” but that “my purpose is to get as much accurate information out as I can consistent with the regulation.”
Watch below:
Barr won't commit to transparency on changes he makes to Mueller report. pic.twitter.com/tPlrkie7TP
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) January 15, 2019
This post has been updated.
“First you say you do, and then you don’t…
Then you say you will and then you won’t…”
The All-Time Magnificent Ray Charles would know this mf-er is a goddam Bushie.
A white-bread Alberto Gonzalez, FFS.
This actually seems to be a really, really big deal.
The ideal GOP outcome is to release “the report”, and get credit for doing so, while utterly defanging it to protect their interests. The public will think it exonerates Trump and company, and the Democrats, the IC, and, well, any one who’s been paying attention, will be left grinding their teeth and fruitlessly harping on what will be labeled “old news” and “conspiracy theories”.
We’ve already seen, with Trump’s triumphant crowing over Comey’s “not under investigation”, exactly what will go down.
Barr’s history in the Iran-Contra Pardons and commitment to Whitewater investigations to sully Clinton during an election prove that he is no more than a typical handmaiden to Republican Power. As such he will be a craven toady to serve †Я☭mp and McConnell. Do not vote for this creep. He is lying, obfuscating, and creating workarounds to block Mueller’s full report. His true intentions and brown-nosing predilections are shown fully in that 17-page audition letter.
More and more it seems that a whistleblower of epic proportion will be required to get around all this Republican pirouetting to hide treason. There really are not good people on both sides.
The report will find it’s way free. These sorts of things can’t stay hidden. Someone will find a way to leak it. Perhaps even to a foreign press outlet in Britain, France or Germany, maybe. The Germans would be gleeful at the chance to dump on Trump. My bet is that a contraband copy of the report will turn up before the “official” release.