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- Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to special counsel Robert Mueller asking him if he’d like to respond to Attorney General William Barr’s testimony about a call between the two.
- Barr testified before the Senate Judiciary committee on Wednesday.
- On Tuesday evening, both The Washington Post and New York Times reported that Mueller sent a letter to Barr on March 27 stating that his four-page summary of Mueller’s report "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office’s work and conclusions."
- Barr also testified that he and Mueller spoke on the phone, following the release of the four-page summary. Graham is now giving Mueller a chance to state if the contents of that call was "misrepresented" by AG Barr.
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Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to special counsel Robert Mueller asking him if he’d like to respond to Attorney General William Barr’s testimony about a call between the two.
Barr testified before the Senate Judiciary committee on Wednesday. On Tuesday evening, both The Washington Post and New York Times reported that Mueller sent a letter to Barr on March 27 stating that his four-page summary of Mueller’s report "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office’s work and conclusions."
It was later revealed that Mueller sent two letters to Barr about the four-page summary — released by Barr to Congress on March 24 after Mueller’s team submitted the findings from their two-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and obstruction of justice. Mueller asked Barr to release summaries written by the special counsel’s office on the findings.
Barr also testified that he and Mueller spoke on the phone, following the release of the four-page summary.
"In response to questions by Senator Blumenthal, the Attorney General testified in essence that you told him in a phone call that you did not challenge the accuracy of the Attorney General’s summary of your report’s principal conclusions, but rather you wanted more of the report, particularly the executive summaries concerning obstruction of justice, to be released," Graham wrote. "In particular, Attorney General Barr testified that you believed media coverage of your investigation was unfair without the public release of those summaries."
Graham is now giving Mueller a chance to state if the nature of that call was "misrepresented" by AG Barr.
The letter, dated Friday, May 3, comes after Sen. Graham said he would not call Mueller to testify before the committee, telling reporters on Wednesday, "I’m not going to do any more. Enough already. It’s over."
During the Wednesday hearing, however, he did say he would send a letter to Mueller, asking "’Is there anything you said about that conversation he disagrees with?’"
When asked to clarify what the letter meant for a potential Mueller testimony, a spokeswoman for Graham told CNN, "He’s giving Mueller the opportunity to provide testimony regarding any misrepresentation by the attorney general of the substance of that phone call. Individuals can provide testimony to a committee in a number of different ways."
CNN pointed out that testimony can come via different methods, written, behind closed doors, etc.
The Wednesday testimony, as pointed out by New York Times reporter Nicholas Fandos on "The Daily," revealed the partisan schism over the Mueller report and what to do with its findings.
Democratic lawmakers, concerned about Mueller’s findings on both Russian interference in the 2016 election and the special counsel’s nondecision on obstruction of justice, want to continue investigating.
Though some 2020 candidates and other lawmakers have called for the start of impeachment proceedings, House Democratic leadership is approaching a potential impeachment inquiry in a more cautious manner. House Democrats will likely continue plodding through investigations (which are already being stymied by the White House).
Some Republican lawmakers, on the other hand, see the report as clearing the president. (Despite the fact Mueller wrote that the report did not exonerate the president, and Barr testified that the DOJ’s decision to not charge the president was not an exoneration).
Graham in particular spent his time during the hearing focused on investigating how the investigation into Russian interference and potential coordination with the Trump campaign began.
The special counsel’s office declined to comment to INSIDER on the matter.
See Also:
- Meet William Barr, the attorney general who Democrats are calling on to resign over the Mueller report
- Attorney General Barr calls Mueller’s letter challenging his summary of the Russia probe report ‘a bit snitty’
- Even as the battle over the Mueller report drags on, the investigation probably won’t hurt Trump in 2020
Source: Business Insider – feedback@businessinsider.com (Sarah Gray)