LIBERAL JUDGE?

Submitted by: Larry Jordan

Citing Barr’s ‘Lack of Candor,’ Judge Demands Opportunity to Review Un-Redacted Mueller Report

By TOBIAS HOONHOUT

March 6, 2020 10:46 AM

Attorney General William Barr in Washington, D.C., February 4, 2020 (Leah Millis/Pool via Reuters)

A federal district judge in Washington on Thursday ordered the Department of Justice to give him an un-redacted copy of the Mueller Report over “grave concerns about the objectivity” of attorney general William Barr’s handling of the report’s release.

“The actions of Attorney General Barr and his representations about the Mueller Report preclude the Court’s acceptance of the validity of the Department’s redactions without its independent verification,” U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton wrote in a 23-page opinion. He also slammed Barr, implying that Barr’s statements in the buildup to the report’s release misled the public.

Senior Judge Reggie B. Walton

Judge Reggie B. Walton assumed his position as a United States District Judge for the District of Columbia on October 29, 2001, after being nominated to the position by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate. Judge Walton was also appointed by President Bush in June of 2004 to serve as the Chair of the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, a commission created by the United States Congress and tasked with the mission of identifying methods to curb the incidents of prison rape. T

“The Court cannot reconcile certain public representations made by Attorney General Barr with the findings in the Mueller Report,” he wrote. “These circumstances generally, and Attorney General Barr’s lack of candor specifically, call into question Attorney General Barr’s credibility.”

Barr sent a four-page summary of the nearly 400-page report to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees in March, in which he stated that Mueller had found no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia — but had left open the question of whether the president obstructed justice during the probe.

Mueller then complained in a letter to Barr that his summary “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the report and caused “public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation.”

The Justice Department downplayed the letter, pointing out that Mueller did not say Barr had been “inaccurate or misleading,” but that he was frustrated “over the lack of context and the resulting media coverage,” but Democrats called on Barr to resign for misleading the public.

While Walton did not dispute the lack of evidence regarding Russian collusion, he still questioned whether the DOJ had redacted portions of the report with the proper motivation.

“In the Court’s view, Attorney General Barr’s representation that the Mueller Report would be ‘subject only to those redactions required by law or by compelling law enforcement, national security, or personal privacy interests’ cannot be credited without the Court’s independent verification in light of Attorney General Barr’s conduct and misleading public statements about the findings in the Mueller Report,” Walton stated.