House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler called on Attorney General William Barr Wednesday to "immediately release" the summaries federal prosecutors reportedly included in the final report the special counsel delivered to the Justice Department last month.
In a letter sent directly to Barr, Nadler urged the Attorney General to release the materials after "troubling press reports" in the New York Times and Washington Post revealed that prosecutors on Robert Mueller's team were particularly frustrated Barr had chosen to offer his own determinations about Trump's wrongdoing without publicizing any of the written materials prepared by the prosecutors themselves.
"These reports suggest that the Special Counsel prepared his own summaries, intended for public consumption, which you chose to withhold in favor of your own," Nadler wrote.
Nadler also said that in light of the reported discrepancies between the four-page report Barr released on March 24 and Mueller's findings, he was requesting that Barr turn over to the committee "all communications" between the special counsel's office and the Department of Justice regarding the report. Nadler specifically cited their communications concerning what would be relayed to Congress, what would be disclosed to the public, and anything related to Barr's original effort to "summarize the principal conclusions" reached by Mueller, as Barr originally stated in his first letter to Congress.
But more than anything, Nadler wants the original summaries made public. "Releasing those summaries—without delay—would begin to allow the American people to judge the facts for themselves," Nadler wrote.
Amen.