Special counsel Robert Mueller's team is right to be concerned that Attorney General William Barr's four-page summary of the 400-page report about the investigation into Russia and President Donald Trump's campaign did not give adequate details, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said Thursday.
"You would expect that in a report that's 400 pages long that there would be a summary or summaries of the findings," the California Democrat told CNN's "New Day." It is, I think, significant if that's the case that the attorney general [took it] unto himself to write his own summary rather than using the ones that the Mueller team may well have expected to be made public."
The Mueller team's summaries will be "among the most-carefully drafted" parts of the report, as they know most Americans won't read every word of the document, said Schiff, who has been pushing for the full report to be made public. "Any deviation by Barr to give perhaps an overly optimistic picture of the president's behavior, particularly as to obstruction, would have concerned the members of that team."
He said he also does not consider it "adequate" to say that the Mueller team summaries likely contained grand jury information and details about current federal investigations, which must remain confidential.
"I would imagine the Mueller team would have all that in mind in drafting the summaries and as it pertains to classified information, they might have included that in a separate annex," said Schiff.
Meanwhile, two weeks after Mueller finished his report, "all we have is Bill Barr's word for this," he added. "Of course, that comes from someone who was picked for his hostility to the obstruction case."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.