Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano on Thursday denounced Attorney General William Barr’s summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report as a “deceptive” and “foolish attempt to sanitize” the conclusions from Mueller’s investigation.
“It is clear that Barr’s four-page letter, about which Mueller complained to Barr and some of Mueller’s team complained to the media, was a foolish attempt to sanitize the Mueller report,” Napolitano wrote in an op-ed published on FoxNews.com.
{mosads}”It was misleading, disingenuous and deceptive. Also, because Barr knew that all or nearly all of the Mueller report would soon enter the public domain, it was dumb and insulting.”
The critical comments from Napolitano come as part of an expansive piece exploring the various events that have taken place since Mueller finished his 22-month investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether President Trump obstructed justice.
Napolitano criticizes Barr for the initial four-page letter he sent to Congress summarizing Mueller’s report. He also condemned the attorney general for clearing Trump in the probe, saying that the Justice Department “is not in the business of exonerating the people it investigates.”
“When the report revealed 127 communications between Russian agents and Trump campaign officials in a 16-month period, and the expectations of those officials of the release of Hillary Clinton’s hacked emails, that is hardly an exoneration,” he wrote, before arguing that Barr deceived Congress during April testimony when asked whether Mueller’s team had expressed complaints over the initial summary.
Mueller in a letter released last month expressed frustration that Barr’s summary “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office’s work and conclusions.”
Barr has faced intense scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers over how he handled the Mueller report and its findings surrounding whether Trump obstructed justice.
The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday voted to hold Barr in contempt for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena to turn over an unredacted version of the report and its underlying documents.
Napolitano argued that Barr “dropped the ball” by failing to respond to Democrats’ subpoena, saying that he could have challenged the subpoena before a federal judge.
“In a bit of bitter irony, the statute that the House Democrats now claim Barr violated is the same obstruction of justice statute that Mueller says the president violated — engaging in deceptive or diversionary behavior for a corrupt purpose in order to impede a government investigation or inquiry,” Napolitano wrote. “This is a gravely serious charge against the attorney general.”
Mueller’s report did not establish that there was a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. It also did not recommend an obstruction of justice charge against Trump, but also said that it “does not exonerate him.”