Barr expects to release nearly 400-page Mueller report by mid-April

Attorney General William Barr told lawmakers on Friday that he expects to have a public version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report ready for release by mid-April and that President Trump has deferred to him to decide what makes it into the redacted document.

“Our progress is such that I anticipate we will be in a position to release the report by mid–April, if not sooner,” Barr wrote to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

{mosads}”Although the President would have the right to assert privilege over certain parts of the report, he has stated publicly that he intends to defer to me and, accordingly, there are no plans to submit the report to the White House for a privilege review,” Barr wrote.

His letter indicates that the Justice Department is all but certain to miss an April 2 deadline set by House Democrats to turn over Mueller’s full report. Meanwhile, Democrats later Friday said they were standing by the deadline they had given for the Justice Department.

“As I informed the Attorney General earlier this week, Congress requires the full and complete Mueller report, without redactions, as well as access to the underlying evidence, by April 2,” Nadler said in a statement Friday afternoon. “That deadline still stands.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, had separately given Barr an April 1 deadline to turn over the document.

The attorney general said officials are reviewing the report to make necessary redactions to restrict grand jury material, sensitive intelligence information that could compromise sources and methods, and details that could impact ongoing investigations stemming from Mueller’s expansive inquiry.

The fact that the White House will not receive a copy in advance means Trump will not be able to assert executive privilege to keep some of the content under wraps.

Barr described Mueller’s report — which the special counsel delivered confidentially to the attorney general one week ago — as “nearly 400 pages long,” excluding tables and appendices, and said it sets forth Mueller’s findings, analysis and “the reasons for his conclusions.”

The nation’s top law enforcement official also identified the dates he is available to testify before Congress, agreeing to dates that were one month past the deadlines that Democrats in the House and Senate demanded for the full report to be turned over to Congress.

“I am currently available to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 1, 2019, and before the House Judiciary Committee on May 2, 2019,” he said.

The attorney general pushed back on previous characterizations that he had only provided lawmakers with a “summary” of Mueller’s findings with his four-page letter to Congress on Sunday, stating that he provided “bottom line” talking points about Mueller’s findings.

“My March 24 letter was not, and did not purport to be, an exhaustive recounting of the Special Counsel‘s investigation or report,” he wrote.

{mossecondads}”As my letter made clear, my notification to Congress and the public provided, pending release of the report, a summary of its ‘principal conclusions’ — that is, its bottom line,” he added. “Everyone will soon be able to read it on their own. I do not believe it would be in the public’s interest for me to attempt to summarize the full report or to release it in serial or piecemeal fashion.”

When asked Friday about Barr’s plans to release the full report, Trump told reporters: “I have great confidence in the attorney general. If that’s what he’d like to do, I have nothing to hide. This was a hoax, this was a witch hunt. I have absolutely nothing to hide and I think a lot of things are coming out with respect to the other side.”

Barr’s letter comes a week after he notified Congress of the completion of Mueller’s investigation, and days after he prepared a four-page letter that revealed the special counsel did not turn over sufficient evidence to establish that members of the Trump campaign coordinated or conspired with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election.

The attorney general also revealed that Mueller did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice but instead set out in his report “evidence on both sides of the question and leaves unresolved what the Special Counsel views as ‘difficult issues’ of law and fact concerning whether the President’s actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction.”

Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein ultimately judged that the evidence was insufficient to charge Trump with obstructing justice, which requires proving that an individual acted with “corrupt intent” to impede an official proceeding.

Trump and Republicans have seized on Barr’s four-page letter, claiming it exonerates the president and attacking Democrats and media personalities who characterized what they viewed as evidence of “collusion” between the campaign and Moscow during the course of Mueller’s near two-year probe.

Meanwhile, Democrats have accused Barr of bias in his initial account of Mueller’s findings and clamored for the release of Mueller’s full report as well as the evidence underlying it.

There is bipartisan support for the report’s release, however House Democrats have been aggressively pushing for its full release — with minimal redactions — and signaled they may subpoena the Justice Department for its contents if the April 2 deadline is missed.

Despite their vocal warnings not to redact too much of the report, Barr has not committed to releasing the full report, as he again laid out in his letter.

“We are preparing the report for release, making the redactions that are required,” he wrote.

Brett Samuels contributed.

Updated at 4:48 p.m.