In a stunning development, a Federal Judge ripped AG Barr and basically accused him of lying or showing a “lack of candor” when he released the Mueller report.
He accused Bill Barr of misrepresenting the findings of the report and demanded an unredacted version to read for himself before he decided whether to release the whole report.
Fox News reported that a federal judge vowed to review an unredacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia investigation in order to determine if those redactions, ordered by AG Barr, were warranted and followed federal guidelines.
U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton, who is presiding over a lawsuit brought forth by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) — a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., focused on privacy and First Amendment issues — in conjunction with BuzzFeed News, said that an independent review of the full, unredacted report is necessary because he has “grave concerns about the objectivity” of Barr’s Justice Department in authorizing redactions in line with department rules and exemptions allowed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Walton — who was appointed to the bench by former President George W. Bush and was a former FISA court judge — said in his Thursday ruling that AG Barr’s “lack of candor” is evidenced by his decision to release a summary of the Mueller report effectively exonerating Trump from potential charges of obstruction without the report being made available to the public so they could draw their own conclusions.
“Barr’s “lack of candor” is evidenced by his decision to release a summary of the Mueller report effectively exonerating President Trump from potential charges of obstruction without the report being made available to the public” – This judge must be a Democrat because that is exactly what the Dems claimed even though AG Barr released the entire Mueller report just a few weeks after the initial summary. This judge may have been chosen by George W. Bush, but I’ve little doubt where his true allegiances lie with that kind of logic.
He is also accusing AG Barr of being a hack for President Trump: “The court seriously questions whether Attorney General Barr made a calculated attempt to influence public discourse about the Mueller Report in favor of President Trump despite certain findings in the redacted version of the Mueller Report to the contrary,” Walton wrote.
He also questioned the “credibility” of Barr’s memo.
“In the Court’s view, Attorney General Barr’s representation that the Mueller Report would be ‘subject only to those redactions required by law or by compelling law enforcement, national security, or personal privacy interests’ cannot be credited without the Court’s independent verification in light of Attorney General Barr’s conduct and misleading public statements about the findings in the Mueller Report,” he added. “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 representation.”