Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) on Tuesday once again attacked Attorney General William Barr’s handling of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on now-debunked collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia, claiming that the nation’s chief legal officer “deliberately misrepresented” its contents.
Amash rocketed into Resistance folk-hero status earlier this month after becoming the first congressional Republican to accuse President Trump of “impeachable” offenses based on Mueller’s report on social media. In the same Twitter thread, the libertarian-leaning lawmaker also accused Barr of misrepresenting the special counsel’s findings. Mueller found no evidence of a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia during the election, and further, Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein determined that the president did not obstruct justice based on the report.
Amash aimed his critique directly at Barr shortly after noon Tuesday, one day after Memorial Day.
“Attorney General Barr has deliberately misrepresented key aspects of Mueller’s report and decisions in the investigation, which has helped further the president’s false narrative about the investigation,” Amash wrote on social media, then accused Barr of crafting a letter which “selectively quotes and summarizes points in Mueller’s report in misleading ways.”
After receiving Mueller’s report, Barr wrote and released a letter on March 24 describing Barr’s own decision not to indict the president for obstruction of justice. That letter selectively quotes and summarizes points in Mueller’s report in misleading ways.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 28, 2019
Barr’s letter doesn’t mention those issues when explaining why Mueller chose not to make a prosecutorial decision. He instead selectively quotes Mueller in a way that makes it sound—falsely—as if Mueller’s decision stemmed from legal/factual issues specific to Trump’s actions.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 28, 2019
https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1133410120988332032
But Mueller’s quote is taken from a section in which he describes other improper motives Trump could have had and notes: “The injury to the integrity of the justice system is the same regardless of whether a person committed an underlying wrong.” None of that is in Barr’s letter.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 28, 2019
Amash later pointed out that Mueller sent a letter to Barr, stating that the attorney general’s summary of his findings “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of his report. “There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations,” Amash tweeted, citing Mueller’s letter sent March 27 to Barr.
https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1133410126969430016
Barr declined; he allowed the confusion to fester and only released the materials three weeks later with the full redacted report. In the interim, Barr testified before a House committee and was misleading about his knowledge of Mueller’s concerns:
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 28, 2019
Barr absurdly replied: “No, I don’t…I suspect that they probably wanted more put out.” Yet Mueller had directly raised those concerns to Barr, and Barr says he “suspect[s]” they “probably” wanted more materials put out, as if Mueller hadn’t directly told him that.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 28, 2019
Barr notes that Mueller did not “find any conspiracy to violate U.S. law involving Russia-linked persons and any persons associated with the Trump campaign.” He then declares that Mueller found “no collusion” and implies falsely that the investigation was baseless.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 28, 2019
In truth, Mueller’s report describes concerning contacts between members of Trump’s campaign and people in or connected to the Russian government.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 28, 2019
It’s wrong to suggest that the fact that Mueller did not choose to indict anyone for this means there wasn’t a basis to investigate whether it amounted to a crime or “collusion,” or whether it was in fact part of Russia’s efforts to help Trump’s candidacy.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 28, 2019
The Michigan congressman then expanded on the purported “false narrative” that President Trump has attempted to disseminate regarding the Mueller report, claiming that Barr played a role in the findings’ misrepresentations. “Barr has so far successfully used his position to sell the president’s false narrative to the American people. This will continue if those who have read the report do not start pushing back on his misrepresentations and share the truth,” he concluded.
https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1133410145449467904
Ultimately, the special counsel “recogniz[ed] that the President would not be interviewed voluntarily” and chose not to subpoena him because of concerns that the resulting “potentially lengthy constitutional litigation” would delay completion of the investigation.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 28, 2019
Barr has so far successfully used his position to sell the president’s false narrative to the American people. This will continue if those who have read the report do not start pushing back on his misrepresentations and share the truth.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 28, 2019
Tuesday’s tweetstorm comes as Amash continues to face fierce blowback from top Republicans over his remarks. Michigan State Rep. Jim Lower (R) recently announced that he will mount a primary challenge to the congressman, saying his remarks on impeachment “show how out of touch he is with the truth and how out of touch he is with people he represents.”
President Trump responded to Amash’s statements, calling him a “loser” and a “total lightweight” in search of media attention.
The House Freedom Caucus has also voted to condemn Amash, one of the group’s founding members, for his statements.
“It was every single person who totally disagrees with what he says,” House Oversight Committee ranking member Jim Jordan (R-OH) said of the vote. “What concerns me is Justin was viewed as a leader, right, on protecting privacy rights first to First Amendment rights.”
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