When Will the Mueller Report Come Out?

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Though we are fundamentally in the dark, like everyone else, we think there’s a real chance the redacted Mueller Report will be released sometime today. This is really just a process of elimination. Bill Barr said he’d have it out by or before “mid-April” (Monday is April 15th). Then in Tuesday’s testimony he said it would be within the week, which should be no later than next Tuesday. Basic media management – which is obviously playing a very big role here – dictates you don’t kick off a week by tossing out a big piece of red meat. So Friday going into a weekend makes a lot of sense.

Here’s the actual progression of Barr’s quotes.

March 29th: “I anticipate we will be in a position to release the report by mid-April, if not sooner.”

April 9th: “Within a week, I will be in a position to release the report to the public.” Also “My original timetable of being able to release this by mid-April stands.”

April 10th: “The report will be made public, hopefully next week, and I will come up and testify at that point about it.”

So will it be today?

There’d be a certain logic to that. But note too that there are at least some signs the timeline is getting wobblier or drifting a bit into the future. There’s mid-April if not sooner, which should mean pretty soon and quite possibly this week. Within a week on Tuesday should mean by next Tuesday, the 16th. But then Wednesday he says “next week” which is to say the week that begins with the 15th and that only “hopefully”.

Obviously these are general remarks. They can only hold up to so much parsing. But a fair read does suggest at least some nudging out the horizon. More important, it’s clear that Barr wants to keep as much of this report secret as possible. Since the best way to do that is to delay releasing, I’m not entirely convinced this timeline will hold up. Probably it will. But I’m not totally convinced.

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