House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler criticized Attorney General William Barr on Thursday, saying he has distorted special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings.
The New York Democrat, seizing on a curiously sourced article in The New York Times, demanded to see all of the briefing materials Mr. Mueller provided to Mr. Barr.
He said he suspected that the attorney general was shielding damaging information from the public — particularly summaries Mr. Mueller reportedly wrote up of his findings, but which Mr. Barr reportedly has kept hidden, instead releasing his own summary.
“If there is significant daylight between his account and yours, the American people should know that too,” Mr. Nadler said in a letter to Mr. Barr.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that “some” of Mr. Mueller’s investigations “have told associates” they were unhappy with Mr. Barr’s portrayal of their findings. The article attributes that finding to “government officials and others familiar with their simmering frustrations.”
The newspaper said it detected “tension between Mr. Barr and the special counsel’s office.”
President Trump blasted the newspaper for running the story.
The Washington Post followed with a similar report Thursday morning.
Both newspapers said a major issue is the summaries Mr. Mueller’s team wrote of its findings, which are collected in a nearly 400-page report. The newspapers suggested some on Mr. Mueller’s team expected more information from those summaries to be made public.
Mr. Barr has instead released a four-page letter saying Mr. Mueller found no evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to subvert the 2016 election, and didn’t find enough evidence to mount a prosecution against Mr. Trump for obstruction of justice.
“It is notable that the Department’s press statement this morning does not deny the existence of these summaries,” Mr. Nadler said Thursday. “If these summaries were, in fact, produced for public consumption by experienced prosecutors, then a precautionary marking should not be an impediment to public production in a very short period of time.”
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.