House Judiciary Committee chair says Congress won't get Mueller report until after Barr's press conference

(Image credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

last updated 18 April 2019

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) tweeted on Wednesday evening that members of Congress will not receive Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on Thursday until hours after Attorney General William Barr's scheduled press conference.

The Justice Department notified lawmakers on Wednesday that they will get the report around 11 a.m. or noon. This is "wrong," Nadler tweeted. He also said he's "deeply troubled" by a New York Times report that White House lawyers have already been briefed on the document by Justice Department officials, ahead of its release.

Nadler is the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and earlier in the day he questioned why Barr is holding a press conference at all. Nadler said Barr wrote him a letter on April 1, saying he didn't believe it would be in the public's interest for him to try to summarize the full report. "So why is the AG holding a press conference tomorrow morning to go over the Mueller report?" Nadler asked.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.