April 4, 2019

Trump Lashes Out After Reports That Mueller Investigation Is More Damaging Than DOJ Claimed

“Fake News.”

Shawn Thew/ZUMA

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President Donald Trump on Thursday lashed out at a New York Times story revealing that several members on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team are apparently dissatisfied with the attorney general’s portrayal of their findings. The investigators, the Times reported, “have told associates that Attorney General William P. Barr failed to adequately portray the findings of their inquiry and that they were more troubling for President Trump than Mr. Barr indicated, according to government officials and others familiar with their simmering frustrations.”

Trump, without evidence, accused the paper of fabricating its sources. He then repeated his false claim that the Times had previously issued an apology to him for inaccurate and “very bad” reporting on him.

In his tweet, the president did not mention the two additional stories—from the Washington Post and NBC News—that backed the Times‘ initial reporting. Those subsequent reports went even further, citing multiple sources who said Barr specifically omitted the special counsel’s own summaries of the 400-page report. A senior law enforcement official also told NBC that Mueller’s finding, in NBC’s words, “paint a picture of a campaign whose members were manipulated by a sophisticated Russian intelligence operation.”

Trump’s tweet came shortly after the Department of Justice released a statement defending Barr’s initial summary. Meanwhile, Democrats this week took formal steps toward officially subpoenaing the full report.

When asked about reports that some on Mueller’s team are frustrated with Barr’s memo, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday offered the following solution for the president: “Release the Mueller report, as soon as possible.”

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