White House officials are bracing for the fallout of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report, anxious they could be revealed as the source of damaging information, NBC News reports.
Attorney General William Barr previously released his summary of the report's main conclusions, saying Mueller did not establish that President Trump's campaign conspired with Russia and did not make a determination about whether the president obstructed justice. But the redacted report, which the Department of Justice says will be released on Thursday, may contain information that could be politically damaging, some of which would have come from current and former White House officials who cooperated.
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It's not clear whether these names would be redacted; Barr has said he would redact information to protect the privacy of "peripheral third parties." But even if they were, a former White House official explained that there are instances where it would be easy to identify the source of information that "applies to just one person." Some of these officials have had their lawyers ask the Justice Department to explain whether they'll be identifiable in the report, but they haven't gotten an answer.
One of those officials who cooperated with Mueller is Don McGahn, the former White House counsel, and ABC's Jonathan Karl reports that what McGahn may have said is "what worries [the White House] most."
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