Attorney General William Barr will hold a 9:30 a.m. news conference accompanied by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw the investigation after Robert Mueller’s appointment in May 2017.
WASHINGTON (AP) — After nearly two years of waiting, America will get some answers straight from Robert Mueller.
The Justice Department on Thursday is expected to release a redacted version of the special counsel’s report on Russian election interference and Donald Trump’s campaign, opening up months, if not years, of fights over what the document means in a deeply divided country.
Attorney General William Barr will hold a 9:30 a.m. news conference accompanied by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw the investigation after Mueller’s appointment in May 2017. That announcement prompted immediate criticism from congressional Democrats, who said Barr is trying to color the report’s findings ahead of its release.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York tweeted that the Justice Department informed him that Congress won’t receive the report until 11 a.m. or noon. “This is wrong. #ReleaseTheReport,” Nadler said. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said in a tweet that Barr will “spin a report no one has read” and encouraged people to “wait to read Mueller’s words for yourself.”
The Justice Department also plans to provide a “limited number” of members of Congress and their staff access to a copy of the Mueller report with fewer redactions than the public version, according to a court filing Wednesday.
The nearly 400-page report is expected to reveal what Mueller uncovered about ties between the Trump campaign and Russia that fell short of criminal conduct. It will also lay out the special counsel’s conclusions about formative episodes in Trump’s presidency, including his firing of FBI Director James Comey and his efforts to undermine the Russia investigation publicly and privately.
