Attorney General William Barr announced on Friday that he will deliver a redacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference into the 2016 presidential election to Congress by “mid-April, if not sooner.”
The news comes after more than a week of wrangling between Democrats and Republicans over the report’s release.
In a letter addressed to the leaders of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, Barr said that he is currently working with the Special Counsel’s office to redact certain portions of the report, which is over 400 pages long. Notably, Barr said that “there are no plans to submit the report to the White House for a privilege review.”
Debate over when, and how much of the report should be made available to Congress—and the public—has raged since Mueller submitted his complete investigation to Barr on March 22. Congress has already seen a four-page review of the report written by Barr. That summary said that, while Mueller had not found any conspiracy between the Trump campaign in Russia, and did not find that President Donald Trump’s actions had risen to the level of criminality, it did not exonerate him of any crime either.
Trump has previously said that he has “no problem” with Barr making the report public. Now that Barr plans to do exactly that, however, it remains to be seen whether the president will continue to encourage transparency.