William Barr fires back at Robert Mueller, and he may have given something away in the process
Yesterday, while Attorney General William Barr was off holding a meeting in Alaska, Robert Mueller took the opportunity to speak directly to the American people and to say what he wanted to say about his investigation into Donald Trump. Now Barr is offering up his response to CBS News, and suffice it to say that it’s an odd one.
William Barr’s interview is set to air on CBS tonight, but portions of it have been posted online in advance. The key takeaway: Barr is claiming that Robert Mueller “could have reached a conclusion as to whether there was criminal activity” on Donald Trump’s part. Barr went on to say that Mueller wouldn’t have been allowed to criminally charge Trump anyway, due to the DOJ policy of not indicting a sitting president. Barr then claimed that he and then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were forced to make a decision because Mueller refused to.
Barr hinted at something similar back when he first released his fictional “summary” of the Mueller report. But now Barr is flat out claiming that Robert Mueller would have been free to announce that Donald Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice. Mueller said yesterday that he wasn’t willing to take a position on Trump’s guilt because it wouldn’t be fair to do that to someone who isn’t going to be put on criminal trial, and therefore won’t have a chance to defend himself.
But Mueller did strongly imply yesterday that Congress should put Trump on impeachment trial. While that’s not a criminal proceeding, Trump would have the opportunity to defend himself against such charges. You have to wonder if, at that point, Mueller’s strict interpretation of the law would then allow him to go ahead and state his position on Trump’s guilt. Mueller said yesterday that he’s hoping he won’t have to publicly testify at all (spoiler alert: he’ll have to). You just have to wonder what door William Barr has unwittingly opened here. After all, he just gave Mueller his blessing to take a position on Trump’s guilt once impeachment begins.
