It Turns out Robert Mueller Was Pretty Pissed off With Barr’s Misrepresentation of His Report

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has remained awfully quiet since he sent his long-awaited report to Attorney General William Barr, who then, in turn, summarized that report as, essentially, Nothing to see here! Move along! However, it appears we haven’t even begun to hear the full story.

It was pretty clear that that summary wasn’t the complete picture, an inkling that was confirmed when Barr then released a heavily redacted version of the full report to the public. But why wasn’t Mueller defending his work?

It turns out he was, albeit in private. According to the Washington Post, after Barr released his short summary stating there was—to use Donald Trump’s favorite phrase—no collusion and probably no obstruction, Mueller sent Barr a letter basically saying,

Mueller’s letter to the Justice Department said that Barr’s brief summary “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office’s work and conclusions.” Because of that, he wrote, “There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.”

Mueller urged the department to release his original introductions and executive summaries of his report and to do so immediately. Doing so, he wrote, would “alleviate the misunderstandings that have arisen.” That wording is cordial and professional but the meaning is clear: Barr effed up (on purpose) and Mueller is pissed.

According to the Washington Post, Justice Department officials were “taken aback” by Mueller’s tone.

Until now, many of us had been wondering why Mueller didn’t offer his own summary of his report, and why he refused to make a definitive statement as to whether or not Trump committed a crime, especially knowing Barr’s extreme bias on the matter. But now we know that Mueller did offer summaries, which, from the sound of it, he fully expected to see Barr release to the public.

As I write this, Barr is testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee and I imagine we’ll have some updates on that later. Leading up to the testimony, Donald Trump went on a Twitter rampage.

There are plenty more like that. He also retweeted a few dozen comments from random people regarding the firefighters’ union and Joe Biden.

Buckle in, everybody. It’s going to be a day.

(image: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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