It’s the first step in what will be a lengthy battle with Democrats over how much of the report will be made public.
Attorney General William Barr will release a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report of his nearly two-year investigation into President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and foreign election interference Thursday morning, a Justice Department spokeswoman confirmed.
The report will be released to both Congress and the public, the spokeswoman, Kerri Kupec, said. Thursday’s release will mark the first step in what promises to be a lengthy battle with Democratic lawmakers over how much of the report they are allowed to see.
Barr will send the report after lawyers from the Justice Department and the office of the special counsel finish redacting portions of the roughly 400-page document. Barr, appearing before a congressional panel last week, identified four areas of information that would be redacted: grand jury information, information that would reveal intelligence sources and methods, information that could interfere with ongoing prosecution and information that implicates the privacy of “peripheral players.”
Barr said in a letter to lawmakers last month that the report “sets forth the special counsel’s findings, his analysis and the reasons for his conclusions” in Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and whether Trump had illegally obstructed the inquiry. “Everyone will soon be able to read it on their own,” Barr said of the report.
Mueller announced the completion of his investigation into the president’s campaign and foreign election interference late last month. Barr set off a political firestorm after he released a four-page summary of Mueller’s report to Congress, in which he indicated the special counsel had not found evidence of criminal collusion or conspiracy between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia during the 2016 election cycle.
