Barr Says He Disagreed With Mueller Over ‘Legal Analysis’
NOT SEEING EYE TO EYE
CBS News
Attorney General Bill Bar has admitted that the Justice Department disagreed with the “legal analysis” in Mueller Report and said he believes that Mueller could have reached a conclusion on whether President Trump obstructed justice. The statement, which came in an interview with CBS This Morning, is a departure from what he told Congress. Earlier this month, Barr said: “We accepted the special counsel's legal framework for purposes of our analysis and evaluated the evidence as presented by the special counsel in reaching our conclusions.” However, in the interview broadcast Friday morning, Barr said: “We didn't agree with the legal analysis, a lot of the legal analysis in the report. It did not reflect the views of the department.” Barr added: “It was the views of a particular lawyer or lawyers and so we applied what we thought was the right law.” That decision led to criticism that the attorney general was trying to shield Trump, but Barr said that he was just “trying to state the bottom line” after Mueller didn't offer a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice.