Attorney General William Barr’s letter is out. The Mueller report that it summarizes isn’t. So that has put the Barr letter under a lot of scrutiny.
If the Mueller report is released, all may become clear. Until then, here are some mysteries, large and small, raised by Barr’s letter:
Why did Special Counsel Robert Mueller not reach a conclusion on obstruction?
The decision puzzled some former Justice Department officials. They said prosecutors at special counsel Robert Mueller’s level typically make their own charging conclusions rather than leave them to higher-ups like William Barr.
‘‘I find this to be very unusual that there was this question left open and presented by the special counsel,’’ Tim Purdon, the former United States attorney for North Dakota during the Obama administration, told The Associated Press. ‘‘As US attorney, usually you have the last say. You’re the decider, you decide what to do.’’
‘‘But of course,’’ Purdon added, ‘‘these are unusual circumstances.’’
Some observers have suggested that Mueller was laying out the evidence for Congress.
“He appears to have created a substantial record of the president’s troubling interactions with law enforcement for adjudication in noncriminal proceedings — which is to say in congressional hearings that are surely the next step,” the experts at the legal blog Lawfare wrote.
Did Mueller actually pass the buck to Barr or did Barr take it upon himself to decide?
After Mueller decided he wouldn’t make a judgment on whether to charge President Trump, Barr stepped in and said he had made the decision — and there would be no charges.
Mueller’s team told Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein about three weeks ago that it did not plan to reach a conclusion on obstruction, according to a Justice Department official who said the move was unexpected.
The official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Monday to discuss private conversations, would not say whether Mueller had asked or invited Barr to substitute his own judgment.
Why did Barr include the ‘did not exonerate’ quote from Mueller’s report?
Barr says in the letter that Mueller made a thorough factual investigation and “ultimately determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment,” which left Barr to make the decision.
Barr also noted that Mueller’s report “sets out evidence on both sides of the question.”
Also, Barr cited a quote from Mueller’s report saying that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
If Barr felt that no charge should ultimately be brought, why include that quote from Mueller?
Is it because of the volume of evidence Mueller amassed? Is it because not exonerating Trump was a major finding of Mueller’s report?
Is the actual Mueller report as tightly focused as the Barr letter?
The Barr letter gives the appearance that Mueller kept an intense, laser focus on exactly one thing: whether Trump and his associates conspired or coordinated with the Russian government’s two election interference schemes, the hacking and social media operations.
But Trump has been entangled in a dizzying variety of scandals, including ones that raise different questions about his — and his associates’ — contacts and financial dealings with Russians. That includes his attempt to strike a deal for a Trump Tower Moscow well into the 2016 campaign and his other reported financial dealings with Russians.
It’s not clear whether any other issues will be mentioned in the Mueller report or in what depth.
What did Barr cut out from the key sentence about collusion?
In the absence of the Mueller report and with only a handful of quotes from the report in the Barr letter, the smallest details are under the microscope.
Some observers have noted that Barr scrupulously bracketed the “T” in the following quote from Mueller’s report:
“[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
The bracket suggests that it’s not a full sentence and it may have been preceded by something.
It’s anyone’s guess what those words might be.
Why is there a slight difference in the wording about the two Russian election schemes?
Lawfare points out that there is a slight difference in the way Barr describes Mueller’s findings about the two Russian election interference schemes.
Barr says Mueller “did not find that any US person or Trump campaign official or associate conspired or knowingly coordinated” with the Russian social media disinformation scheme. But as for the Russian hacking scheme, Barr said Mueller “did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it” worked with the Russians.
That discrepancy in the words opens the possibility that a US person not affiliated with the campaign had worked with the Russians on the hacking scheme, Lawfare points out, saying the wording might or might not be significant.
The legal experts also point out that Barr said the hacked materials were distributed through “various intermediaries, including Wikileaks,” but Barr never mentioned whether Mueller had reached any findings on potential Trump team dealings with those intermediaries.
What investigations did Mueller refer to ‘other offices’?
“During the course of his investigation, the Special Counsel also referred several matters to other offices for further action,” Barr wrote.
The attorney general does not detail those investigations in his summary. One known referral from Mueller’s office has been a major thorn in Trump’s side: The case of Michael Cohen, which was handed off to the US attorney for the Southern District of New York. Cohen has cooperated and has alleged that he was directed by Trump to violate campaign finance laws.
Material from Globe wire services was used in this report.
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