US Attorney General William Barr to release Robert Mueller report ‘within a week’

US Attorney General William Barr testifies during a US House Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee hearing on the Department of Justice Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, April 9, 2019. (AFP photo)

US Attorney General William Barr has said he will release next week the public version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report into the alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Barr said on Tuesday during testimony before a House Appropriations subcommittee on the Justice Department’s fiscal year 2020 budget request that the redactions made to the report would be color-coded and footnoted so that the people know why they redacted those portions.

“The process is going along very well,” Barr said. “My original timetable of being able to release this by mid-April stands.”

"Within a week I will be in position to release that report to the public and then I will engage with the chairmen of both judiciary committees about that report, about any further requests that they have," headed.

House Democrats have called for the full release of Mueller’s report to Congress – without any redactions – and have expressed displeasure with the attorney general’s plans to redact portions of the report.

Barr on Tuesday pledged to release as much from the report as he can within the confines of the law.

“I do think it’s important that the public have an opportunity to review the results of the special counsel’s work,” Barr said. 

Trump has claimed “complete and total exoneration” after the Justice Department announced Mueller’s 22-month investigation found no evidence of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia in the 2016 election.

Barr, a Trump appointee, said in a four-page summary of the report released last month that Mueller’s team had concluded that no one in Trump’s campaign “conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.”

However, Mueller’s findings left unresolved the issue of whether Trump obstructed justice by undermining the investigations.

Many of the president’s opponents had accused him of obstructing the Russia probe when he fired former FBI Director James Comey in 2017.
Echoing Trump, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the American public knows "there was no collusion, they know there was no obstruction and it's a complete and total exoneration of the president." But she also said President Trump would have no problem with the release of the full report.

Democrats have rejected the determination made by the Justice Department on the evidence presented by Muller following his extensive investigations.

They said they wanted to see Mueller’s report for themselves as they launch congressional investigations of their own into the 2016 election and Trump’s business and financial dealings.

Democrats accused Barr of putting his own finding on Mueller’s report, saying that the special counsel did not exonerate Trump of obstruction of justice. 

Democratic lawmakers have tried repeatedly to pass a House resolution that claims there is "overwhelming public interest" in the administration releasing the contents of the Mueller report.