AG nominee William Barr: Mueller Report confidential by law and will NOT be released

The big takeaway from yesterday's confirmation hearings for Attorney General nominee William Barr was the disclosure that by law the final report by the Special Counsel is confidential. It cannot and will not be released.

However, it is the responsibility of the Attorney General under the procedures for the DOJ's Office of Special Counsel to summarize the findings of the Special Counsel and provide a report of that to the Congress and to the public. Barr made it clear that he wanted to release as much information from Bob Mueller's Special Counsel report as he could, as in his view it was time to get everything out there so we can move on.

For those of you who missed the hearings, here is the report from the Washington Post:

William Barr’s big caveat on publicly releasing the Mueller report

President Trump’s attorney general nominee, William P. Barr, made two things abundantly clear Tuesday: He would release a summary of the Russia report “consistent with the law,” and he is really good friends with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

“I don’t know what, at the end of the day, what will be release-able,” Barr told Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) of Mueller’s report, saying it would be confidential and the attorney general would be responsible for putting out “certain information upon the conclusion of the investigation.”

“It is very important that the public and Congress be informed of the results of the special counsel’s work,” Barr said in his opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee. “My goal will be to provide as much transparency as I can consistent with the law.”

{More at the link}​

Senate Democrats were apparently caught flat-footed by this revelation, as they clearly were unfamiliar with the procedures for the DOJ's Office of Special Counsel and its legal requirements, which were adopted during the Clinton administration in the aftermath of the Ken Star Independent Counsel investigation of President Clinton.

It seems that Senate Democrats were for some reason actually expecting the confidential Mueller Report document to be released directly to the public, or at least to be provided to them, so they could leak it to the press later. But that is against the procedures for the DOJ's Office of Special Counsel, which were adopted by the DOJ under President Clinton.

While I do expect AG Barr to release as much information as he can, I also expect that anything included in the report along the lines of 'We looked into such and such and it seemed fishy, and we were troubled but in fact there is no evidence, blah, blah, blah' can reasonably be expected to be left out of the final AG's report.

And if Barr were to leave out any major findings backed up by evidence that demonstrated that Donald Trump conspired together with the Russians to steal the 2016 presidential election from Hillary Clinton, that would be truly scandalous and improper, and would in my opinion support Barr's removal from office, and if the law provides for it, worse.

 

That is a good question and I for one would like there to be some sort of check on this. I am pretty confident that William Barr would like that as well, as he is not going to try to pull anything on this and he does not want to go around with people indiscriminately and wrongly accusing him of doing so.

 

Whoever makes it public will be violating the law and will be at serious risk of being put in prison, as the report is confidential.

 

What exactly is incorrect? What are you talking about?

 

Trump's lawyers may get the opportunity to review and edit AG Barr's report about the Special Counsel's report. But I suspect not.

The Special Counsel's report is confidential by law and cannot be published. However the regulations do give the AG some discretion to be able to publish information from the Special Counsel's report in the report that he prepares and provides to both Congress and to the public.

 

Cool. I will look forward to watching that.

 

Barr explained this repeatedly and in quite a bit of detail during his hearings yesterday. The Special Counsel report is classified, but much of the information in the report will be releasable within the context of the final report on the Special Counsel investigation prepared by the AG.

AG nominee Barr pledged to release all of the information that he could about the Special Counsel's findings, as he believes that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and that we need to be as transparent about all of this as possible in order for the country to be able to move on.

 

It sounds like you are suggesting changing the rules in the middle of an investigation, for that investigation. Barr is not going to do that. He did not make these rules and he surely will not change them for application to a specific, currently ongoing investigation.