Attorney General William Barr sent a second letter to lawmakers on Friday which said Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report of his investigation of President Donald Trump and Russia's election interference will be delivered to Congress by mid-April, according to The Washington Post.
“Everyone will soon be able to read it on their own,” Barr said while explaining the next steps to publishing the 400-page report.
Barr's letter said he would not be submitting the report to the White House for review.
“Although the president would have the right to assert privilege over certain parts of the report, he has stated publicly which he intends to defer to me and, accordingly, there are no plans to submit the report to the White House for a privilege review,” Barr wrote.
Mueller delivered his final report last week to senior leaders at the Department of Justice.
Barr sent a four-page letter to Congres on Sunday after reviewing the report which claimed Mueller “did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”
Trump and other Republicans have cited that letter as an exoneration of Trump.
But Barr's letter also withheld judgment on whether or not Trump attempted to obstruct justice during the investigation.
“The Special Counsel . . . did not draw a conclusion — one way or the other — as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction,” Barr wrote in last week's letter.
“The Special Counsel states that ‘while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him’.”
Democrats have been calling for the full release of Mueller's report since Barr's letter and have even threatened to subpoena the document if they did not receive it by next Tuesday.
Barr's letter addressed those concerns while requesting more time to review Mueller's report since he needs to redact any grand jury information from the document ann anything else which could negatively affect ongoing investigations.
Barr wrote he would remove any “potentially compromise sources and methods” of intelligence collection, and any information which would “unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties.”
He also said his previous letter was not a "summary" of the Mueller report as some Republicans have claimed.
“My March 24 letter was not, and did not purport to be, an exhaustive recounting of the Special Counsel’s investigation or report,” Barr wrote.
“As my letter made clear, my notification to Congress and the public provided, pending release of the report, a summary of its “principal conclusions” — that is, its bottom line. The Special Counsel’s report is nearly 400 pages long (exclusive of tables and appendices) and sets forth the Special Counsel’s findings, his analysis, and the reasons for his conclusions. . . . I do not believe it would be in the public’s interest for me to attempt to summarize the full report or to release it in serial or piecemeal fashion.”
-WN.com, Maureen Foody