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Attorney General William Barr is about to release the much anticipated report of Special Advocate Robert Mueller on Russia's interference in the 2016 election. Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will hold a press conference on Thursday at 9:30 am to discuss the release of the report.
Democratic members of Congress Wednesday expressed concern over the timing of the release. The Department of Justice was only prepared to prepare for its release after Barr's press conference. The report is expected to be delivered on CD at Capitol Hill between 11:00 am and noon, according to a senior official of the Justice Department. It will then be posted publicly on the Special Council website.
A spokesman for the Justice Department said Barr will address three aspects of the report at this press conference:
- Interactions between the White House and the Department of Justice regarding the report
- The drafting process
- If the White House has invoked the privilege of the executive
Barr issued a four-page letter summarizing the report's main points earlier this month, stating that Mueller had concluded that President Trump had not coordinated with Russian personalities to influence the 2016 campaign. also said that Mueller had not yet determined whether Mr. Trump had obstructed the justice, but Barr and Rosenstein concluded that the president had not done so.
Mr. Trump tweeted for the first time Thursday, shortly before 8 am, referring to the "biggest political hoax of all time!"
The Mueller Report
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More in The Mueller Report
Trump decries "PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!"
8:30 The president launched his second tweet of the day, in a familiar tone:
– Stefan Becket
Barr to discuss leadership privilege and their interactions with the White House
CBS News
8:00 During his press conference, Barr will try to determine whether the White House has invoked the privilege of the executive on certain aspects of the report, said a spokesman for the Department of Justice. He will also seek to clarify the relationship between the Justice Department and the White House over the report in recent weeks and discuss the redaction process.
The press conference should last 20 to 30 minutes. The spokesman described Barr's behavior as "calm" on Thursday morning.
– Paula Reid
Why Barr holds a news conference before the report is released
19.30: Jonathan Turley, a legal analyst at CBS News, said in "CBS This Morning" that he believes that Barr hopes to use his press conference to explain how the deletions of the report were made. However, he acknowledged that Mr. Trump's opponents will interpret this decision as an attempt to turn the report in favor of the administration.
"There will be so many spinoffs in this city that Earth will be diverted from its axis of rotation," Turley said. Turley, who has known Barr for many years, said that he did not think the Attorney General was holding the press conference in order to carry water for the president, but to provide more money. 39, information on the manner in which the redactions had been decided.
"He's going to explain how these things are done so that Americans understand what they're going to see and how that happened," Turley said.
Turley said the most important part of the report could indicate whether the president had obstructed justice. Mueller did not make a decision on this issue, leaving Barr to decide that Mr. Trump had not impeded justice.
"The section of the report that deals with the obstruction is likely to contain the essence of what we are looking for, as opposed to collusion," Turley said.
– Grace Segers
Democrats want Barr to cancel press conference
7:00 .: Democrats in the House, furious that Barr is talking to the press an hour and a half before Congress and that the public is about to see the report redacted, have asked Barr to cancel his press conference.
"The main concern here is that Attorney General Barr does not allow the facts of the Mueller report to speak for themselves but is trying to make sure that storytelling benefits the White House," Nadler said. Wednesday night alongside the representatives. Hakeem Jeffries, Ted Deutch, Val Demings and Madeleine Dean. Nadler accused Barr of organizing a "media campaign" on behalf of the president.
Nadler, Chair of the Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, Chair Elijah Cummings, Chair of the Financial Services Committee, Maxine Waters, Chair of the Financial Services Committee, and Chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Eliot Engel, also released a statement asking Barr to cancel the conference.
"This press conference, which will apparently not include special advocate Mueller, is useless and inappropriate, and apparently aims to change the public's view of the report before anyone can read it. "said the chairman of the committee in a statement released Wednesday night.
– Grace Segers
Pelosi and Schumer ask Mueller to testify publicly
6:30 am: Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer issued an early morning statement asking Mueller to testify in the House and Senate:
"Attorney General Barr regrettably treated the Mueller report in partisan fashion, including his summary letter of March 24, his irresponsible testimony before Congress last week and his indefensible plan to present the report at a press conference. later in the morning, see the public or the Congress – have caused a crisis of confidence in its independence and impartiality.We believe that the only way to restore public confidence in the treatment of the Special Advisor's investigation is for Special Advisor Mueller himself to publicly testify the House and Senate as soon as possible.The American people deserve to hear the truth. "
– Stefan Becket
What you will not see in the report
Barr told members of Congress that he would make the report public as much as possible, but that he would write sections based on four criteria:
- Information from the grand jury
- Confidential information
- Material related to ongoing investigations
- Any information that "would unduly infringe the privacy and reputation interests of third-party devices".
Grand jury information, including information about witnesses, can be obtained in court. Some big jury records in the investigation of President Bill Clinton and an investigation into President Richard Nixon have been published. However, these documents were made public after the Judiciary Committee of the Chamber initiated the impeachment proceedings.
Nadler expressed his distrust of Mr. Trump's removal from office and may argue in court that documents can be obtained without formal impeachment proceedings.
At a hearing of the credit sub-committee in the House, Barr said the report would be color-coded, with "explanatory notes" describing the basis of each drafting.
At a hearing before a Senate credit sub-committee, Barr made waves suggesting that "spying had actually occurred" during the Trump campaign in the 2016 election, stating that he would investigate the origins of the Mueller report.
"I'm not saying that inappropriate monitoring has taken place, I say I'm worried about it and that I'm looking at it, that's all," Barr said. His testimony allowed the Democrats to assume that Barr was carrying the President's water on this issue, while Mr. Trump had seized allegations that his campaign had been monitored.
– Grace Segers
Trump's lawyers working on a counter-report
The President's personal lawyers worked on a counter-report to refute Mueller's findings. This counter narrative has been in the works for months and they have continued to modify it this week. The length of the report has varied, although Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani has stated "that they are trying to make it concise."
Giuliani said Wednesday that his team was confident that Mueller's report "can be answered very simply". They will point out that Mueller has found no fault attributable to a charge and that there has been no charge of collusion or obstruction against the president or whoever or else.
There is no indication that the President's legal team has taken note of the Mueller report. It is therefore based on information available to the public and on the knowledge acquired through its collaboration with its client in this survey.
The White House works separately from the president's personal advocates and takes a more discreet approach. They will read the redacted report and publish a statement, as they did with Barr's four-page letter.
– Paula Reid
Democrats prepare for publication of report
The Democratic Speaker of the Judiciary Committee of the House, Nadler, said the Congress had "the right to see everything" from Mueller's report, doubling his request that the Justice Ministry provide his committee with the findings of the report. Almost two-year investigation conducted in Russia without redactions.
"Congress has the right to look at the entire report, without any deletions, so we can see what's out there," Nadler said in "Face the Nation" earlier in April. "We have the right to see it because the Congress represents the nation, and the Congress must take action in this regard, so we have the right to see everything."
Nadler said that he would go to court to get a secret grand jury testimony that could be included in the unredacted report.
"We would have to go to court to get disclosure of the grand jury information, but this has been a success in all previous situations," Nadler said. "And it's not up to the Attorney General to decide with regard to this or other documents that he decides Congress can not see."
Members of other congressional committees also requested more information on the report.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, a Democrat and GOP member, Devin Nunes, met in a rare bipartisan crisis to demand "full visibility" of the findings, citing the origins of counter-espionage. Investigation and the statutory control responsibilities of the committee.
In a letter dated March 27 addressed to Barr, Rosenstein and FBI Director Chris Wray, the committee leaders asked to receive "all documents, regardless of their form and classification, obtained or produced by the Bureau. special counsel during the investigation. "
Schiff and Nunes stated that these documents should include documents relating to the scope and subjects of the investigation, as well as any "raw report" related to intelligence or counterintelligence issues. They also asked Mueller himself to meet with the full committee, as well as members of his management team and the relevant law enforcement and national security officials.
– Olivia Gazis and Camilo Montoya-Galvez
Republicans plan to react to the report
The president's allies also prepared for the publication of the report. A GOP party aide from the House of Representatives said his office was looking for details in the section on the obstruction of the Mueller report that Democrats might try to follow. GOP staff will play "devil's advocate" by flipping through the report to find out how to best respond to democratic attacks.
"We really expect Democrats to insist on redactions," which would imply that there is something "damaging" or "repressing," and trying to answer that, has said the GOP assistant.
An aide to the House of Representatives of the House of Representatives has expressed concern about the unknowns of "palace intrigue" that could feature in the report, and said that on Thursday, one could only perceive that "no one can be seen". an advantage for Democrats, since it does not take 400 pages to say "no collusion, no obstruction."
"The reality is that Barr's letter basically said, as I understood Republicans and probably Americans, I think, you basically said that you know that there was no collusion or obstruction, "said the second GOP assistant. "We now have 400 pages to read on Thursday, and the reality is that it does not take 400 pages to say without collusion or obstruction, so I think Thursday will be a day when you can see the Democrats making a lot of molehills in the mountains, they are going to look for anything in there, and I certainly think that all the benefits are for Thursday because, according to them, all that does not say that there is no collusion, no obstruction probably good news. "
– Kathryn Watson
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