Federal judge questions Barr's 'credibility,' requests unredacted Mueller Report
A federal judge on Thursday ruled that the Department of Justice has until March 30 to turn over to him an unredacted copy of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Judge Reggie B. Walton wrote that Attorney General William Barr made "distorted" and "misleading" public comments about the report before giving it to Congress. The "inconsistencies" between Barr's statements and what appeared in the redacted version of the Mueller Report made public led the court to "seriously question whether Attorney General Barr made a calculated attempt to influence public discourse about the Mueller Report" to help President Trump, and Barr's actions and "lack of candor" call into question his "credibility."
Walton's ruling came in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by BuzzFeed News. The media outlet is asking for an unredacted copy of the full report, and Walton said it would be "disingenuous for the court to conclude that the redactions of the Mueller Report pursuant to the FOIA are not tainted by Attorney General Barr's actions and representations."
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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.
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