The rumor mill is running overtime in the nation’s capital. Last week, speculation was special counsel Robert Mueller would be finishing up his Russian collusion investigation this week. That didn’t happen, maybe because President Trump is out of the country. This week speculation is he’ll be releasing it next week. Nobody knows for sure (except Mueller) but it does feel like his investigation will be wrapping up soon. Finally.
Whenever it does, Mueller will submit his confidential report to our new Attorney General, William Barr. Then Barr will have a decision to make. How much of the report does he release to Congress and how much does he release to the public?
In my opinion the Attorney General should release as close to ALL of the report as is permissible under the law. Of course there may be classified information, that must remain classified. There may be names or other information that are critical to ongoing investigations that can’t be released, as it could jeopardize those investigations. But other than legitimate exceptions like these, the default position should be full disclosure, transparency, let the chips fall where they may.
Afterall, the American people are paying for the Mueller probe. They’re paying Robert Mueller, and his staff, and his investigators. They have a right to have access to the information that resulted from the investigation that they paid for.
I’m one of the few remaining Members of Congress who were around to experience first hand the controversy surrounding the release of a similar report, The Starr Report, involving President William Jefferson Clinton about two decades ago. Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House at the time, and decided to release to the public the full Starr Report, which focused on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice which related to the Monica Lewinsky matter.
In that case, there was a considerable amount of salacious evidence concerning Clinton’s behavior with Lewinsky. Clinton defenders were able to spin this full disclosure as Republicans just trying to embarrass the President. And to a considerable degree, the public accepted that spin and thus the release of the whole report probably hurt Republicans and helped Clinton.
Despite having been on the receiving end of that Democrat spin machine two decades ago, I still think full disclosure is the way to go. Unless the report is fully released (minus classified information and evidence related to ongoing investigations) the public is likely to feel that justice hasn’t been done. And they’d probably be right.