DOJ defends Barr against claims he's mishandling the Mueller report

The Department of Justice has responded following reports that some members of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team are unhappy with Attorney General William Barr's summary of their findings.

DOJ spokesperson Kerri Kupec said on Thursday that Barr could not release the full Mueller report because "every page" was marked as saying it may contain confidential grand jury information, per CBS News. Kupec also said Barr released the report's principal conclusions when he did given the "extraordinary public interest in the matter" but that this was not meant to be a summary, and it was done with the understanding that "the report itself would be released after the redaction process." Barr said he expects the report to be made public by mid-April.

Barr told Congress last month that Mueller's investigators did not establish that Trump or members of his campaign conspired with Russia and did not reach a conclusion about whether he obstructed justice. But The New York Times now reports that some members of Mueller's team feel the findings of the investigation were "more troubling" than Barr's summary suggested and that they wish he had released the summaries they wrote for each section of the report. The DOJ reportedly concluded these summaries couldn't be released because they contain classified information.

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Trump has touted the report's findings as described by Barr as totally exonerating him and continues to criticize the media for its coverage of the investigation. His lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said on Wednesday that the Mueller investigators who spoke to the press are "unethical" and "rabid Democrats." Barr's summary noted that Mueller did not exonerate Trump on obstruction of justice, and The Washington Post reports that Mueller's investigators actually found the evidence of obstruction to be "alarming and significant," while NBC News reports some Mueller investigators think their findings "paint a picture of a campaign whose members were manipulated by a sophisticated Russian intelligence operation."