Mueller Confronted Barr over Statements Regarding Special Council Report

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has expressed frustration about how Attorney General William Barr characterized the final report of his Russia investigation. Robert Mueller has been in charge of a nearly two-year special investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election, as well as if the campaign for Donald Trump was involved in the interference. This investigation was called for by Congress after several pieces of evidence came to light that the Trump campaign may have illegally worked with Russia in the 2016 presidential election. After the firing of FBI director James Comey, Mueller was appointed by the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in May 2017 to investigate the issues. For nearly two years, Mueller and his team looked at countless documents, interviewed several individuals, and came to conclusions regarding the situation. In total, the Special Counsel indicted 34 people as part of the investigation. Seven of these people were US nationals; twenty-six of these people were Russian nationals, and one person was a Dutch national. Of the indicted include Trump campaign members Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Michael Cohen, and Michael Flynn. The Special Counsel released their final report on the investigation to select individuals in March, before making it public. Attorney General William Barr was one of the people that initially read the report, and soon after provided a four-page document summarizing the contents. Barr claimed in his letter that the report found that Trump campaign associates did not “conspire or coordinate” with the Russian government during the 2016 campaign. Barr made sure to state in his summary that the Mueller report did not necessarily find the president guilty of obstruction of justice or any related crimes. Now, it has been released that Mueller sent Barr a letter “expressing frustration over the lack of context” in his four-page summary, widely published by the media. A spokesperson also confirmed that the two had a professional conversation about the situation as well. This argument between the two top law enforcement individuals shows that Mueller was not happy with the way Barr expressed the lengthy investigation in his short summary. Mueller likely thought that his summer missed a lot of key points, or perhaps skewed the public into believing inaccurate ideas about the investigation. The full investigation report was released this month and can be found on-line.