Wittes: Bill Barr Has Promised Transparency. He Deserves the Chance to Deliver.

[Qutzupalotl]

Bill Barr Has Promised Transparency. He Deserves the Chance to Deliver.
Judge the attorney general by what he ultimately sends to Congress.



Benjamin Wittes
Editor in chief of Lawfare and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution

....

Barr has said since his confirmation hearings that he is committed to maximum public access to Mueller’s findings consistent with the law. Since Mueller delivered his report, he has stood by this and said he means to expeditiously review a 400-page document and release as much as he can. His time frame has clarified over the past week, from soon to “weeks not months” to “mid-April, if not sooner.” Congressional Democrats are demanding the report by Tuesday. This difference is not material. If the Justice Department releases Mueller’s report in a capacious and reasonable fashion in mid-April, that is a perfectly fine outcome.

Barr has also laid out what material he believes he must redact from the document. On some of these matters, he is simply correct. For example, Barr says he means to remove grand-jury material; it is actually unlawful, criminal even, to disclose grand-jury material without the authorization of the court. In the short term, there is no way to give this material to Congress, let alone make it public; it would require substantial litigation to do so.

Moreover, Barr says he means to redact “material the intelligence community identifies as potentially compromising sensitive sources and methods.” Note that he is not saying he will redact all classified material. But it is quite irresponsible to demand that the attorney general dump in the public domain sensitive intelligence matters in a fashion that could burn collection capabilities or human sources. There is no way the attorney general is going to release a 400-page document summarizing a counterintelligence investigation without a careful review for national-security information. And going through a lengthy document with a lot of information from different sources in a review for both national-security and grand-jury material takes time—legitimately. Getting it done in a few short weeks would require having a team working on it around the clock.

Barr also says he will redact “material that could affect other ongoing matters, including those that the Special Counsel has referred to other Department offices.” This strikes me as reasonable as well. Mueller has kicked a variety of matters back to the Justice Department. Do we really want Barr to screw up those investigations by prematurely releasing the department’s analysis of them? We didn’t want Mueller to do this. I don’t want Barr to, either. This category of redaction is potentially subject to abuse, but I am not going to assume preemptively that it will be abused.
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more:
http://on.theatln.tc/sumrw8a

[dlk]

1. Let's See What Tomorrow's Deadline Brings. If Not, then the Subpoenas

Last edited Mon Apr 1, 2019, 05:19 PM - Edit history (1)

I support salvaging the rule of law.

[Qutzupalotl]

5. Since we know so little, it's an open question about

what outcome supports the rule of law. As the full article points out, there are legitimate areas of redactions, in particular those that might compromise the investigations Mueller referred to other prosecutors, and I’m thinking in particular the counterintelligence investigation. I would not want that compromised by premature disclosures.

[dlk]

8. I Would Defer to Neal Katyal, Who Wrote the Special Counsel Regulations

He seems to think the report is required to be released.

[Qutzupalotl]

9. True, but I only meant when, not whether it would be released.

No doubt Congress is due the full report and will get it, but in the meantime I hope the ongoing probes are not compromised.

[dlk]

10. I Agree

[Wellstone ruled]

2. If you have been following Wittes

statement during the last 20 months or so,you will notice a different swing towards Trump and Presidential absolute power.

[Karadeniz]

3. To our knowledge, Barr has not tried nor has the intention to ask the judge to release

grand jury evidence. This is inconsistent with his trying to make as much material public as possible.

[samnsara]

4. we already gave him that chance and he failed

[hlthe2b]

6. Wittes, though a respected legal writer, has been both a defender of Barr and Kavanagh's nominations

(He's good friends with Comey as well)...

I am not sure he sees things as objectively as I think he should... Particularly when the likes of major legal minds, Neal Kayal, Laurence Tribe and even Kellyann's hubbie, George Conway say otherwise.

[Shell_Seas]

7. Technichally, he didn't promise transparency....

He said he would "try to be as transparent as possible."

I see a very noticeable distinction in words there.