US ATTORNEY GENERAL William Barr will send a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report of the Russia investigation to Congress, it has been confirmed.
In a letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate judiciary committees this evening, Barr confirmed that he would send the report by mid-April, and would not share it with the White House beforehand.
The Attorney General, who took up his position after being nominated by President Donald Trump in December, said he wanted Congress and the public to have access to Mueller’s findings, included in a nearly 400-page report submitted last week.
He also said that Trump would have the right to assert executive privilege over parts of the report.
But he noted that the president had stated publicly that he intended to defer to him that there were “no plans to submit the report to the White House for a privilege review”.
“Our progress is such that I anticipate we will be in a position to release the report by mid-April, if not sooner,” Barr wrote.
“Everyone will soon be able to read it on their own.
“I do not believe it would be in the public’s interest for me to attempt to summarise the full report or to release it in serial or piecemeal fashion.”
The redactions are expected to include grand jury material, information that would compromise sensitive sources and methods, information that could affect ongoing investigations, and information that could infringe on the personal privacy and reputation of “peripheral third parties”.
Mueller officially concluded his investigation when he submitted the report last Friday, finding that the Trump campaign did not coordinate or conspire with Russia.
Two days later, Barr sent a four-page letter to Congress that detailed Mueller’s “principal conclusions”, saying he had not reached a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice.
Barr said he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein decided on their own that Mueller’s evidence was insufficient to establish that the president committed obstruction.
Asked about Barr’s commitment to release a redacted version of Mueller’s report, Trump said that he has “a lot of confidence” in Barr.
“If that’s what he’d like to do, I have nothing to hide,” the US President said from his golf club in Florida.
With additional reporting from Associated Press.
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