Thread by @jedshug

Barr's 4-pg summary is:
1 pg on Russian interference.
1 pg on obstruction.
It quotes Mueller on obstruction: "While this report does not conclude that the Pres committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."
It's Barr's short letter, not Mueller.
We need to see the report.

2/ On Russian interference, the letter quotes Mueller:
"The investigation did not establish" conspiracy or coordination.
But any lawyer would ask about what legal burden of proof Mueller was using.
Proof "beyond a resonable doubt"?
But that's not the only relevant standard.

3/ A prosecutor needs to ask not just about whether there is "probable cause" (the standard for indictment). A prosecutor needs to ask if there is enough evidence to justify prosecution.
Mueller may have been explicitly using a higher standard in this context. We just don't know.

4/ Stone indictment stated: “After July 22, 2016 release of stolen DNC emails by [Wikileaks], a senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact STONE about any additional releases and what other damaging information [it] had regarding the Clinton Campaign."
Who directed?

5/ Barr's letter seems deliberately written to avoid THIS QUESTION. Barr focuses narrowly on "the Russian government."
Wikileaks was not the Russian government, but coordinating with Wikileaks is plausibly soliciting/conspiring.
Barr seems to be deliberately obscuring. Unclear.

6/ Mueller's report probably included an executive summary of some kind.
Why not share that summary, even if Barr did his own rough redactions?
Barr quoted only 3 sentences from Mueller. Why would he not offer more than 3 sentences from Mueller?
I find that highly questionable.

7/ For comparison, Ken Starr's report on Clinton provided a half-page introduction and short summaries in many key sections.
Mueller surely offered similar summaries.
And yet Barr did not share those summaries.
Just 1 full sentences and 2 partial sentences from Mueller.

8/ This was the Starr Report introduction. Surely Mueller wrote something like this. Barr is deliberately not sharing it, and substituting his own summary of a summary.

9/ Barr's letter says "in our judgment (Barr's & Rosenstein's)," Trump's actions aren't sufficient to prove criminal obsruction, "which would need to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt."
-"Our judgment," not Mueller's...
- Implicitly focused on proving "beyond reasonable doubt."

10/ And keep in mind that Barr got this job because he wrote Trump a memo that basically said that no president could be guilty of obstruction for the removal of an official.
Extreme unitary executive theory.
So Barr's legal conclusion is no shocker here.

11/ Another Special Counsel Report as a model for comparison: Iran-Contra and the Walsh Report.
Look, an executive summary! Imagine that!

12/ And even more importantly, Walsh led with his damning "Overall Conclusions."
What are the chances that Mueller did not review these models and provide something similar for precisely this kind of Atty General "letter"?

13/ I put together this thread into a @slate article:
slate.com/news-and-polit…