Donald Trump unleashes furious tweets as Department of Justice announces redacted Mueller report to be released on Thursday
- Document will be made available to Congress and the public
- Despite pressure to produce full report, Attorney General Barr says sensitive information on grand jury and US intelligence-gathering must be redacted first
US Attorney General William Barr plans to release a redacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election on Thursday morning, Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said on Monday.
Kupec did not provide a precise time, but said the redacted report would be released both to Congress and the public.
As Washington counts down until the release, US President Donald Trump stepped up his attacks in an eleventh-hour effort to undermine the report’s findings.
Trump unleashed a series of tweets on Monday — including two just minutes after the Justice Department’s announcement — focusing on the favourable toplines in the four-page summary Barr released last month.
“The Mueller Report, which was written by 18 Angry Democrats who also happen to be Trump Haters (and Clinton Supporters), should have focused on the people who SPIED on my 2016 Campaign, and others who fabricated the whole Russia Hoax,” Trump tweeted.
“Since there was no Collusion, why was there an Investigation in the first place! Answer – Dirty Cops, Dems and Crooked Hillary!” he also posted.
Mueller turned over a copy of his confidential report to Barr on March 22. Two days later, Barr released a four-page letter summarising what he said were Mueller’s primary conclusions.
In that letter to Congress, Barr said that Mueller’s investigation did not establish that members of Trump’s election campaign conspired with Russia.
Barr also wrote that Mueller presented evidence “on both sides” about whether the president had obstructed justice, but that he had did not draw a conclusion one way or the other. Consequently, Barr said, he reviewed Mueller’s evidence and made his own determination that Trump did not commit the crime of obstruction of justice.
Barr has been under pressure from Democrats to release the full report without redactions. The Mueller investigation cast a cloud over the presidency of Trump, a Republican.
Barr, a Trump appointee, has pledged to be as transparent as possible. But he has said he must redact some sensitive information from the publicly released version, including grand jury information and information about US intelligence-gathering.
The redactions in the report will be colour-coded by category, according to Barr, explaining the reasons that those parts are blacked out.
Critics say the grand jury material is crucial to understanding whether there was evidence of criminal behaviour by Trump.
Since Barr’s initial summary, Trump and the White House have been pushing the view that the probe was unwarranted from the start, involving biased investigators and allegedly illegal spying on his campaign by the FBI.
The president claimed “complete and total exoneration”, condemned “an illegal takedown that failed” and accused unnamed political enemies of treasonous acts.
Since Barr released his letter, Trump has set his sights on the FBI, and accused the Justice Department of improperly targeting his campaign.
Last week, Barr, the top US law enforcement officer, told a US Senate panel he believed that “spying” did occur on Trump’s campaign, and he plans to investigate whether it was properly authorised.
“The question is whether it was adequately predicated,” Barr told the lawmakers.
The comments by Barr – who last year as a private-sector lawyer wrote an unsolicited 19-page letter to Trump’s legal team declaring that part of Mueller’s case might be “fatally misconceived” – were criticised by Democrats, who are already sceptical of how the attorney general has handled the report’s release.
Additional reporting by AFP and AP
