Opinion: If Barr wanted to cover for Trump, he could have crimped the Mueller probe, sat on the report, or redacted it into meaninglessness. He did none of the above.
An investigation into whether the president of the United States essentially committed treason has devolved into a squabble over Attorney General William Barr’s brief letter saying that he didn’t.
Let’s be clear. If Barr wanted to cover for Trump, he could have crimped the Mueller probe, sat on the report, or redacted it into meaninglessness. He did none of the above. Barr’s conduct is defensible on its own terms. He wanted to get the basic verdict out — to use his analogy from his Senate Judiciary Committee testimony on Wednesday — because the investigation had so roiled our national life, especially the possibility that there was coordination between the Trump campaign and a foreign power.
Of course, Barr’s summary letter inevitably lacked the narrative force and details of the 400-page report, but we know that … because he released the report.
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