Testimony of William Barr: Two weeks after Mueller confronted him, the Attorney General denied knowing whether Mueller had supported the summary of his report.

Attorney General William Barr faces tough new questions regarding his response to the report of special advocate Robert Mueller at the Senate hearing on Wednesday. Members of the Judiciary Committee want to know why Mueller told the Attorney General that he was frustrated by Original report summary by Barr. In a letter, Mueller told Barr that his message to Congress "did not fully capture the context, nature and substance" of Mueller's views on obstruction of justice.

Earlier, Barr had told legislators that he did not know if Mueller was supporting his finding on the obstruction. CBS News confirmed that Mueller had not only sent a letter to Barr to complain about the way Barr had described the findings of the special advocate, but that the two men had also talked on the phone. During this conversation, Mueller asked for additional information to be disclosed, but the attorney general only promised to release the full report as soon as possible, reports CBS News correspondent Paula Reid.

Almost two weeks after his phone conversation with Mueller, Barr denied knowing where Mueller was standing to describe the findings of the investigation.

"Did Bob Mueller support your conclusion?" Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland asked on April 10 before a congressional committee.

"I do not know if Bob Mueller supported my conclusion," said Barr.

Barr has publicly defended his decision not to accuse the president of obstructing justice.

"The evidence developed by the special advocate is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an offense of obstructing justice," Barr said on April 18.

In the letter first reported by the Washington Post, Mueller wrote to Barr: "There is now confusion in public opinion about the critical aspects of the results of our investigation. achievement of a central objective for which the Ministry has appointed the special advocate: to ensure public confidence in the outcome of investigations. "Mueller also asked Barr to publish the introductions and summaries of the report to the public.

According to the Department of Justice, after receiving the letter, Barr called Mueller, his longtime friend and colleague. The Attorney General stated that he did not wish to publish the report in a fragmented manner. The two men agreed to make the full report with the necessary deletions as soon as possible.

The Justice Department points out that Mueller also said "Nothing in the Attorney General's letter of March 24th was inaccurate or misleading."

We still have not heard directly from Mueller and the Department of Justice has taken more than three weeks to publish the report. Meanwhile, the Chair used Barr's summary to describe the findings of the report.

"It has been very firmly proven that there is no collusion, no obstruction, nothing," Trump said on March 26.

"Frankly, there was no collusion or obstruction," he also said on April 11.

CBS News obtained a copy of the remarks prepared by Barr. There is no mention of Mueller's letter or his conversation with him, but he says that no one at the Department of Justice has ever dismissed the special advocate. He intends to use his opening statement to thwart his decision not to accuse the president of obstructing justice, even though Mueller was unable to make a decision and present evidence outside of the two. sides of the question. That's what Barr intends to say, but as we've seen, Barr tends to go out of the script.