Investigators who worked for special counsel Robert Mueller have suggested anonymously that they were frustrated by Attorney General William Barr‘s summary of their work in the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, reports said Wednesday.
The New York Times reported certain members of Mueller’s team telling associates that Barr, in his four-page letter to Congress that detailed the probe’s findings, didn’t include information contained in summaries of the special counsel’s report that investigators compiled when the probe was completed.
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The Washington Post also reported that team members had taken their complaints to associates, telling them that they gathered significant and worrying evidence regarding obstruction of justice.
Barr delivered to Congress a letter in late March a summary of the report that said the special counsel found no evidence that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign had colluded with the Russians.
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He also said Mueller didn’t find evidence that could prove in court that Trump committed obstruction of justice.
However, Mueller didn’t exonerate the president, despite Trump’s statements to the contrary.
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“It was much more acute than Barr suggested,” one anonymous source told the Post.
Sources speaking to the Times did not make clear why the probe’s findings carried more potential trouble for the president than Barr expressed in his summary.
It is believed, however, that the report focuses on Trump’s attempts to frustrate the special counsel office’s work.
There was also no clarity about just how many of Mueller’s investigators felt frustrated by Barr’s summary.
Investigators prepared summaries of each section of the report with the understanding that they could be quickly released, said one anonymous official speaking to the Post.
“It was done in a way that minimum redactions, if any, would have been necessary, and the work would have spoken for itself,” the official said.
Staff at the Justice Department, however, determined that said summaries contained information that should remain confidential, two anonymous government officials told the Times.
Barr is expected to deliver a redacted version of the report by mid-April.
The attorney general is reportedly taking time to remove any confidential information ahead of its release.
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