Federal judge criticizes Barr over transparency concerns for the Mueller report – Washington Examiner

A federal judge handling a case centered around special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report criticized Attorney General William Barr on Tuesday, saying he has “created an environment” fostering concerns about transparency.

Judge Reggie Walton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia delivered the rebuke in federal court before ruling that the Justice Department would not be compelled to provide BuzzFeed with a version of the Mueller report by Thursday. The judge’s words appeared to echo concerns about Barr that congressional Democrats have also expressed.

“Obviously there is a real concern about whether there will be transparency … I hope that the government will be as transparent as it can be,” Walton said.

“The attorney general has created an environment that has caused a significant part of the American public to be concerned about whether there will be full transparency,” he said.

BuzzFeed is seeking Mueller’s report through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit and asked for it to be provided to them under an expedited schedule by April 18, which is this Thursday. Earlier this week, the DOJ announced it will be providing a copy of Mueller’s highly anticipated report to Congress that same day with redactions being overseen by Barr.

In his opening remarks, Walton said that even though he doesn’t know what the redacted Mueller report released by Barr will look like, “it seems to me that it’s premature to believe that what will be released on Thursday will be different than what would be released under FOIA.”

BuzzFeed filed its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in early April, asking the court for injunctive relief to compel the Justice Department to provide a copy of the Mueller report to them. Walton denied a similar request earlier this month that was brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, but the research center had also sought a whole host of other nonpublic documents related to the special counsel investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election as well. BuzzFeed had hoped it might receive a more favorable ruling because its request was much narrower than the information sought by the research center. That didn’t happen.

DOJ’s attorney argued to Walton that “an injunction is an extraordinary act with a high burden” and said that “this is particularly true when trying to order the Justice Department to do something.” In prior court filings, DOJ argued BuzzFeed “cannot establish irreparable harm,” specifically citing the fact that Barr sought to release the Mueller report in mid-April and said he would “color code” the report with “explanatory notes describing the basis for each redaction.”

Matthew Topic, the attorney for both BuzzFeed and its journalist Jason Leopold, said, “We intend to challenge the redactions” and argued that “the longer we wait to get the FOIA response, the longer it takes for us to move this case forward.” In a recent court filing, BuzzFeed said, “It is likely, given the categories of information the Attorney General has already determined will be redacted, that we are at the first step of what could be a lengthy legal process to decide whether those redactions are legally permissible under FOIA.”

Given the number of public pronouncements made by government officials such as President Trump and others, Topic said there was an incredible public interest in knowing what the full Mueller report contains. Countering the idea that further delay wouldn’t cause any harm, Topic argued, “The irreparable harm would be being forced to wait.”

Walton disagreed, saying BuzzFeed “cannot be harmed irreparably by waiting a little longer. … I don’t doubt there’s some harm, but it’s not irreparable.” He denied BuzzFeed’s motion for injunctive relief.

After ruling that he would not order DOJ to provide a copy of the Mueller report to BuzzFeed by Thursday, Walton set another hearing for May 2. He also said the Electronic Privacy Information Center would have another hearing that day too and suggested he might combine the relevant parts of the two cases.

Walton said he wanted DOJ to be prepared on May 2 to share whether the redacted report released Thursday is the same as what would have been released via the Freedom of Information Act, but DOJ’s attorney could not say whether they would know by that time.

Barr provided a four-page summary of Mueller’s report last month, which said Mueller did not establish the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 presidential campaign. The summary also said Mueller did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump had obstructed justice during the investigation but said Mueller also did not exonerate the president. Barr said he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded Trump had not committed obstruction.

Barr later identified four categories of information that will not be made public, including material related to grand jury proceedings which by law cannot be made public, information deemed by the intelligence community to compromise sensitive sources and methods, details that could affect other ongoing investigations — including those referred by the special counsel’s office to other offices — and material that would “unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties.”

Walton said that “because Mueller conducted much of his investigation in front of a grand jury,” he wouldn’t be surprised to see that information redacted.

The BuzzFeed case is likely just the beginning of a multi-front battle for the full Mueller report. In addition to Freedom of Information Act litigation from the Electronic Privacy Information Center and BuzzFeed working its way through the courts, Democrats in Congress have made it quite clear that they intend on using their powers to subpoena the full report as well as to bring in witnesses, including Barr and possibly Mueller.