Former special prosecutor Ken Starr called special counsel Robert Mueller’s letter to Attorney General William Barr an “unfair whiny complaint,” during his Monday appearance on “The Story With Martha MacCallum.”
Mueller wrote a letter to Barr in March, alleging that Barr’s four-page summary of the Mueller report “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office’s work and conclusions,” before adding that, “There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation.” (RELATED: ‘Completely 100% Wrong:’ Lindsey Graham Calls Out Judge Nap On Obstruction Question)
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“In terms of what you said earlier, Ken Starr, I want to ask you about — you said Bob Mueller deserves the sharpest criticism for sandbagging Bill Barr. What do you think about that?” MacCallum asked.
“Terrible. Well, his letter that was then leaked on the very eve of Bill Barr’s testimony, was essentially, I believe, an unfair whiny complaint when he wasn’t saying that the letter, the March 24 letter from Bill Barr that summarized the conclusions, which he was obliged to do,” Starr stated. “That wasn’t a discretionary call, he was obliged to do exactly what he did. Then here comes Bob Mueller with this letter, which is then leaked.”
He continued, “That is to me the unforgivable sin. He, Bob Mueller, badly injured this attorney general and the attorney general didn’t deserve that. But, of course, that created its own huge firestorm, including suggestions that the attorney general was totally mischaracterizing the report and so forth. When you look at that March 24 letter, I think Bill Barr was honestly trying to do the right thing and to do it in the right way.”
As Starr mentioned, Mueller’s letter was leaked the day before Barr was expected to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week. The letter put pressure on Barr, even though the special counsel did not actually take issue with the veracity of Barr’s memo to Congress.
