This is obligatory really. Everyone already knows the media misled the public about Mueller’s reaction to Barr’s summary.
On the eve of Attorney General William Barr’s testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee today, the liberal media decided to toss a grenade—insinuating the Special Counsel Robert Mueller “complained” about Barr’s letter that summarized his report.
Buried down in The Washington Post‘s story is the tidbit that Mueller did not think Barr’s letter to Congress was inaccurate.
The Washington Post and New York Times seized on the March letter, in which Barr criticizes the way he chose to present Mueller’s findings regarding Russian interference in the 2016 Trump campaign, as evidence of a conflict between Barr and Mueller over the way the AG handled the report’s release.
Both outlets created the impression Mueller is severely upset with Barr for mischaracterizing the Russia report in his four-page summary of Mueller’s report and that the tone of his criticism shocked the Department of Justice.
That response from Mueller would give a lot of ammunition to the leading narrative that Barr mishandled the delivery of the report and intentionally misled the public as to its contents if it were accurate. But the letter, read in full context, suggests a much more banal reality, which The New York Times and Washington Post buried in their reporting.
Mueller did disagree with the way Barr delivered his findings; he wanted Barr to release executive summaries of the report, but he did not take issue with the accuracy of Barr’s memo to Congress.
Bottom line is that Mueller wanted Barr to introduce the public to his report in a different way. Barr did not say anything inaccurate about Mueller’s report. Still not collusion, still no obstruction, still no crime, giant lie that wasted a lot of energy and a lot of taxpayer money.
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