Attorney General William Barr’s nearly hour-long interview with CBS News’ Jan Crawford last week was full of fascinating details about the special counsel probe, the debunked Russia collusion theory that roiled Washington for years, and Barr’s investigation into how the FBI and Department of Justice used the “bogus” theory to investigate the Trump campaign.
The interview was downplayed by the media, which is implicated in perpetuating the Russia hoax Barr is investigating, and which came in for criticism from Barr for its failure to care about violations of civil liberties. Here are the top 28 take-aways from the interview.
1. Mueller ‘Could Have Reached a Conclusion’
Crawford, whose questions revealed a command of the facts not demonstrated by many of her mainstream media peers, asked Barr about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s decision to outline 11 instances where President Trump’s frustration at falsely being accused of treason could amount to “possible obstruction” followed by a refusal to decide whether they did.
Barr explained that the Office of Legal Counsel opinion that prevents presidents from being indicted was no barrier to making a conclusion about obstruction. “Right, he could have reached a conclusion,” Barr said, noting that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded that Trump had not obstructed justice.
“[W]hen he didn’t make a decision, the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and I felt it was necessary for us as the heads of the Department to reach that decision,” Barr said. “That is what the Department of Justice does, that is why we have the compulsory powers like a grand jury to force people to give us evidence so that we can determine whether a crime has committed and in order to legitimate the process we felt we had to reach a decision.”
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