Federal Judge Blasts Attorney General Bill Barr’s Spin on Russia Report

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A federal judge wrote a blistering 23-page opinion on Attorney General Bill Barr’s Simone Biles-like effort to flip the findings of then-special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Did I mention U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton wrote a 23-page opinion (pdf)? 23 pages. Nas’ Ether was what, 40 bars? Also, never go against a judge named Reggie Walton. Ever. Walton found that Barr did then what we now know as “raising the Barr,” in which he conflated or deflated statements or the law to aid his boo, President Donald Trump. Walton’s 23-page opinion on Barr’s statements before releasing the report to the public last year “raised serious doubts about whether the Justice Department faithfully applied the law when deleting certain information from the publicly disclosed version,” Politico reports.

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“The Court cannot reconcile certain public representations made by Attorney General Barr with the findings in the Mueller Report,” wrote Walton, an appointee of President George W. Bush, Politico notes.

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“The inconsistencies between Attorney General Barr’s statements, made at a time when the public did not have access to the redacted version of the Mueller Report to assess the veracity of his statements, and portions of the redacted version of the Mueller Report that conflict with those statements cause the Court to seriously question whether Attorney General Barr made a calculated attempt to influence public discourse about the Mueller Report in favor of President Trump despite certain findings in the redacted version of the Mueller Report to the contrary,” the judge added.

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Spokespeople for Barr did not immediately respond to Politico’s request for comment, probably because they were reading the report like “Damn, Judge Walton got us all figured out!”

It’s been almost a year since Barr decided to put his cut on Mueller’s report and hold a damn press conference before releasing the report to the public, and Democrats have complained since that time that Barr is compromised, or at least his version of the Mueller report was caca.

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Now, Democrats have a Republican-appointed judge claiming that Barr’s remix of Mueller’s findings helped lead the public into confusion.

“The Court has grave concerns about the objectivity of the process that preceded the public release of the redacted version of the Mueller Report,” the judge wrote, Politico reports. “A review of the redacted version of the Mueller Report by the Court results in the Court’s concurrence with Special Counsel Mueller’s assessment that Attorney General Barr distorted the findings in the Mueller Report.”

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This isn’t the first time that Judge Reggie Walton has blasted Barr or the Justice Department. Walton claimed before the report was released last April, that Barr’s description of it was sowing distrust in government among many Americans.

“The attorney general has created an environment that has caused a significant part of the public … to be concerned about whether or not there is full transparency,” the judge said at the time.