A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America

by Philip Rucker

On March 27, Mueller signed a letter to Barr from the special counsel’s office objecting strongly to the attorney general’s handling of the principal conclusions: “The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office’s work and its conclusions. We communicated that concern to the Department on the morning of March 25. There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.” The letter said that the introductions and executive summaries of the report “accurately summarize this Office’s work and conclusions,” and included those redacted documents as attachments. “Release at this time would alleviate the misunderstandings that have arisen and would answer congressional and public questions about the nature and outcome of our investigation.” Barr’s office did not receive the letter until March 28. When they first read it, the attorney general and his team thought, “Holy shit! What is this? Give us a break.” To them, it was an uncharacteristically passive-aggressive move by Mueller. On April 30, the eve of Barr’s Senate testimony, the correspondence was reported by Devlin Barrett and Matt Zapotosky of The Washington Post. At his hearing the next ...