Following the release of a redacted version of the Mueller report Thursday, Rep. Jim McGovern told WGBH News he “doesn’t trust” U.S. Attorney General William Barr’s assessment that there was “no collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election.
“Based on the way this attorney general has acted, I don't trust him,” McGovern said in an interview with Boston Public Radio Thursday. “I don't think he is interested in making sure we get to the whole truth.”
McGovern says he hopes Barr will release an unredacted version of the 400-page report to congressional committees for review; right now, huge swaths of the report are blacked out.
“We'll see what [Barr] releases to the relevant committees,” McGovern said. “I'm looking at portions of the report — on page 18 of the report everything is blacked out, and there are other pages in the report that are the same way. I'm not sure what that is, but I'm not going to take the attorney general's word.”
Congress is about to break for two weeks for the Easter and Passover holidays and will meet afterwards to discuss next steps, McGovern said.
“We're going to have a serious discussion about what we do next,” he said. “But ... this is not normal behavior by any executive, and this is something that should concern everybody.”
The report comes after a nearly two-year long investigation. In a four-page summary Barr wrote of the special counsel's reportreleased earlier this month, the attorney general defended his handling of the investigation, claiming the report contains sensitive information about an ongoing case. According to McGovern, the full report released today could potentially reveal more answers.
“[Barr's] initial response ... paints a very different picture of the Mueller report than what we are seeing with what was released today, a dramatically different picture,” McGovern said. “I think that this report really is a damning indictment of the entire Trump presidency.”
