Mueller Objected Immediately and Repeatedly to William Barr’s “Summary”

Bill Clark/Congressional Quarterly/Newscom via ZUMA

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Robert Mueller’s letter to Attorney General William Barr complaining about Barr’s “summary” of the Mueller report has now been released. It doesn’t explain what Mueller’s concerns are, but it does provide something of a timeline:

March 5: Mueller meets with Barr and tells him that the introduction and executive summaries of his report “accurately summarize this Office’s work and conclusions.”

March 24, early afternoon: Mueller reiterates his position that the introduction and executive summaries of his report are accurate

March 24, late afternoon: Barr releases his own summary of the Mueller report.

March 25, morning: Mueller tells Barr his summary “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office’s work and conclusions.”

March 25, afternoon: Mueller sends redacted versions of the introduction and executive summaries to Barr and asks that they be released.

March 27: Mueller sends a memo to Barr saying once again that he would like the introduction and executive summaries to be publicly released. The redaction process for the full report “need not delay” this, he says, and “release at this time would alleviate the misunderstandings that have arisen.”

In other words, Mueller immediately objected to Barr’s summary, saying that it had created “misunderstandings,” and repeatedly asked that the report’s introduction and executive summaries be released to the public right away. Barr declined to do this.¹

As an aside, Barr is testifying before the Republican-controlled Senate right now, but is still declining to testify before the Democrat-controlled House. Why? Because the House plans to have its committee counsel question Barr. The thing is, Barr knows that he can easily dodge any question he finds inconvenient if he’s being questioned by politicians in five-minute chunks. But half an hour of questioning from a trained professional? That’s a little harder.

¹Needless to say, Barr had created these “misunderstandings” quite deliberately, and he had no desire to clear them up. Mueller never seemed to get this.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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