The rollout of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the alleged collusion between the Trump 2016 presidential campaign and Trump’s own obstruction of justice is just beginning and already the whole thing feels messy, but even more, it feels shady.
Attorney General Barr says he will transmit copies of the public version of the #Muellerreport to Congress at 11 a.m. https://t.co/lzOeQfzsdc pic.twitter.com/U8GQXbplNN
— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 18, 2019
Trump’s Attorney General William Barr, selected by the president and confirmed even after reports that he had already made a judgment on obstruction of justice despite having never seen any of the evidence in the report, held a press conference on Thursday morning ahead of the release. That alone had members of Congress questioning this  rollout, since Barr’s press conference has the power to set a tone before the public has seen the evidence.
The report will be delivered to Congress at 9:30 A.M. EST and publicly at 11:00 A.M. EST. The public release will be available on the website for the Department of Justice.
We now know, for the sake of informing our good judgment, the last time William Barr tried to get away with something like this, in 1989, his summary of that document's principle conclusion bore no relation at all to what was actually in the underlying document. pic.twitter.com/08po9omdfU
— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) April 17, 2019
Even more alarming was confirmation on Wednesday night that Barr has discussed the report with the White House, even allowing for redactions due to “executive privilege.” While executive privilege is given to the president regarding public releases of information as a way to prevent the release of information that may put national security at risk, Trump is not the most transparent president and has shown repeatedly in the past that he’s prone to lying and covering for himself and his children, at least one of whom was involved in the acts under investigation.
No Collusion – No Obstruction! pic.twitter.com/diggF8V3hl
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 18, 2019
For a man who swears he’s been exonerated by this report, however, Trump seems defensive even before the report’s release. While he had previously tweeted gleeful jibes at Democrats who  who considered Mueller a hero before the report’s release and were angry at him after he “exonerated” Trump (neither is true, Democrats were concerned about Barr’s lack of transparency, not at Mueller, who said that his report in no way exonerated Trump of the crimes of obstruction of justice), he now has reverted back to attacking the investigators, some of whom have said that Barr’s summary of the report is whitewashed. The report, according to investigators who have actually seen the evidence, is far more damaging to Trump than Barr was willing to admit.
Barr: Evidence developed by Mueller was not sufficient to establish that Trump committed an obstruction of justice offense
— Axios (@axios) April 18, 2019
Featured image screenshot via YouTube
