Barr ‘misled public over Mueller report’

A FEDERAL judge has accused William Barr, the US attorney general, of misleading the public over the contents of the Mueller report into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Mr Barr has been under fire since March last year when he released a summary of the Mueller report saying that it had found no evidence of a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

Within days, Mr Mueller disputed Mr Barr’s summary, which Mr Trump had already seized upon to claim “total exoneration”. Substantial portions of the report were redacted when it was released and the department of justice has been under pressure to disclose its full contents amid allegations that the findings had been distorted by Mr Barr.

Reggie Walton, who was appointed to the federal bench by George W Bush, ordered the department of justice to show him a completely unredacted version of the report.

Judge Walton’s remarks were delivered as he ruled on a freedom of information case brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Centre and Buzz- feed demanding the publication of the unredacted report. He said the court was unable to reconcile Mr Barr’s summary with the report itself.

The court “seriously questioned whether attorney general Barr made a calculated attempt to influence public discourse about the Mueller Report in favour of President Trump”.

Last month, Mr Barr’s intervention in the case of Roger Stone, one of Mr Trump’s allies, triggered a demand for his resignation from more than 1,100 former federal prosecutors and department of justice officials.