Why A Judgeās Rebuke Of Barrās Mueller Report Shenanigans Was So Remarkable
Why A Judge's Rebuke Of Barr's Mueller Report Shenanigans Was So Remarkable
"A federal judgeās assertions Thursday that Attorney General Bill Barr made āmisleadingā statements about special counsel Robert Muellerās report sent shockwaves through the legal community.
The judgeās
allegations that Barr ādistortedā Muellerās findings in a perhaps ācalculated attempt to influence public discourse about the Mueller Report in favor of President Trumpā was a remarkable scolding of a sitting attorney general, and one that comes as other actions Barr has taken related to Muellerās probe have come under increased scrutiny.
Seasoned legal experts
said they had never seen anything like the opinion that U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton of Washington, D.C., issued in a Freedom of Information Act case. In his stinging ruling, the judge ordered the Justice Department to produce for his own review an unredacted version of Muellerās report because Walton couldnāt trust the governmentās stated reasons for withholding redactions of the report.
What stood out to former federal prosecutors is that Walton called out Attorney General Bill Barr by name. The judge said that the way Barr rolled out the Mueller report called into question Barrās ācredibilityā and thus the claims that the Justice Department now was making about the reportās redactions.
āI have never seen an attorney general called out this way before by a judge for making misrepresentations,ā Harry Sandick, a former federal prosecutor, told TPM in an email."