The Amazing Speed-Reader Attorney General!

[TygrBright]

Been bugging me, this:

Mueller delivered his report Friday afternoon around 5 pm EDT, right?

By all accounts, although we will apparently never know for sure, the actual physical report was hundreds of pages long. Possibly MANY hundreds of pages.

Barr released his four-page summary about midafternoon on Sunday.

Let us stipulate that the Mueller Report was almost certainly couched in the terms of a legal investigation, and probably highly complex.

Now I know there are some lawyers on DU, and probably a good many paralegals, law enforcement professionals, and other Officers of the Court. Would any of you feel comfortable answering this question?

How long would it take you to closely read, analyze, and summarize a complex brief running into several hundred pages, accurately and fairly?

I'm just curious.

Because absent some kind of Reading Superpower, or other logical explanation, the only conclusion I can draw is that Barr basically had the memo ready to go, possibly with some priming by Rosenstein with respect to the Executive Summary version, and when the actual report was delivered he just skimmed the Executive Summary, tweaked the language a bit, and released the already-written memo.

Is that, ummm... good legal procedure?

curiously,
Bright

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. He had already decided what he wanted it to say

and he was going to do whatever he needed to do to be sure the report itself never saw the light of day, just in case it was at variance in any significant respect with the summary. I'd bet he started drafting it as soon as he got confirmed as AG (maybe even before then). There's no way in hell he could have read and digested a report that must be hundreds of pages long and written a summary of it in less than two days.

[notdarkyet]

5. Supreme Court here we come. Isn't the house legally supposed to get the report and be the

Ones who decide what goes out.? Barr is a sleazy asshole.

[LuckyCharms]

10. +1

[RKP5637]

2. I wonder if his report was seriously read at all. Barr had his agenda, he just filled in the blanks

of his agenda as he IMO just glanced through Mueller's report. Having Rosenstein there made it appear to be somehow legitimate for those that don't question anything. The whole review was a sham.

[madaboutharry]

3. Barr wrote a summary of Mueller's summary.

Barr did not write a summary of the report. He cherry picked phrases and cut sentences in half while writing a summary of a summary.

Barr's letter is a farce. It was a PR stunt in order to get The White House version out in the media so to gaslight the American people.

There is no doubt that the gap between "no chargeable consiracy" and Barr's statement of "no collusion" is wide.

Also, it is highly probable that Barr's conclusion concerning obstruction will be found to be baseless.

[guillaumeb]

4. He was hired specifically because of his past actions and views.

And so far, he has lived down to those actions and views.

[Hoyt]

6. I do think someone with good reading/comprehension/writing skills could read the report and

write a summary pretty quickly, especially if there were already an executive summary. And, I doubt Barr read everything himself, and I am sure he had been briefed on the results days, if not weeks, before.

Now, whether he made an accurate summary of the important points -- that's questionable. I doubt that he went too far off in what he actually summarized because sooner or later the report will be released or leaked, and his comments easily verified. I doubt he covered everything of importance, although I don't think even most GOPers would deny that Russia helped trump; if trump did not directly ask for help he, certainly accepted it; trump clearly obstructed justice because we saw it; etc.

By Saturday people were already screaming about where is at least a summary. Others said Sunday was too fast for a summary. Whatever he did was going to be criticized by somebody.

Personally, I believe if he were going to flat out lie, he never would have put in the part about "but does not exonerate. . . . . ." On the other hand, I doubt he made reference to all the things that will, and should be, picked apart when the report is released.


I really want to hear what the FBI found in its investigation of whether trump has been compromised by Russia. I think that is a bigger issue, at this point.

[True Blue American]

7. 556 Pages

If I remember right. I am a speed reader but it would take more than 2 days to absorb that many pages. Skim reading does not count.

[MoonRiver]

8. Evelyn Wood protege?

[LuckyCharms]

9. Here is how I think things work:

We (you and me and everyone else) see this as a situation where Barr receives the report, reads it, digests it, and then write a memo.

In my opinion, what actually happens is that as soon as Barr became AG, he kept in contact with Mueller, since he is now Mueller's boss, as to the content of Mueller's report. Barr was not surprised by the content of Mueller's report, nor was he unaware of the details contained in it. Barr began drafting his response to Mueller's report as soon as he became AG, and probably sooner than that.

Barr is there for one reason only, and that is to protect Trump. Everything that has ever been heard from Barr, and everything that will ever be heard from Barr in the future, is driven by one thing and one thing only: protect Trump.