by Chuck Ross
Attorney General William Barr plans to release a redacted version of the special counsel’s Russia report on Thursday morning, a Justice Department official told reporters.
The report is expected to contain redactions for classified information as well as information provided to a grand jury that special counsel Robert Mueller used in his 22-month investigation.
The Justice Department is planning to release the 400-page report to both Congress and the public.
White House lawyers have reportedly been briefed on the Mueller report, but are not expected to invoke executive privilege to block other information from being released.
Barr sent Congress a letter on March 24 summarizing Mueller’s main conclusions. In the letter, Barr said that Mueller did not establish that the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Mueller was less decisive on the question of obstruction of justice. Barr said that while Mueller’s team did not recommend charges for obstruction, they also did not exonerate Trump on that question. Barr said that after consulting with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Justice Department lawyers, he decided not to pursue an obstruction case. One of his arguments was that since nobody was being charged in the collusion portion of the case, Trump would have nothing to obstruct.
Democrats are already poised to subpoena the full, unredacted version of the Mueller report. They’ve expressed concerns that Barr will redact information that is embarrassing to Trump. Rosenstein, who oversaw the Mueller probe, defended Barr in an interview on April 11.
Rosenstein called the partisan response to Barr’s handling of the response “completely bizarre.”
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Chuck Ross is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation. Follow Chuck on Twitter.
