At his hearing, Barr stated that he would consult career ethics officials regarding recusal from oversight of the Mueller investigation, but refused to commit to following their advice, as previous nominees, including Jeff Sessions, had done. He insisted that he would make his own determination, regardless what ethics officials said. In his written answers, he refused to budge and added that he would not commit to making officials’ advice public. The public, therefore, likely will never know whether ethics officials told him to recuse himself, though the public likely will hear if officials do not urge recusal. In any event, Barr appears firmly committed to supervising Mueller.
Regarding release of any Mueller report, Barr repeated his statement that his “goal will be to provide as much transparency as I can consistent with the law, including the regulations discussed above, and the Department’s longstanding practices and policies.” In context, this reasonable-sounding language provides the rationale for a spare notification to Congress that the special counsel investigation is complete and little more.
The regulations that Barr committed to follow require only that the attorney general notify Congress when the special counsel’s investigation is closed. The required content for the notification is an explanation of any instance in which the attorney general overrode a proposed action of the special counsel as “so inappropriate or unwarranted under established Departmental practices that it should not be pursued.” Such a notification is unlikely to contain extensive discussion of the special counsel’s findings and conclusions. While the special counsel regulation states that the attorney general may release “these reports” to the public if he concludes it is in the public interest to do so, Barr made clear that he reads the regulation as authorizing release only of the attorney general’s notification to Congress and not the underlying special counsel report.
View the complete January 31 article by Bill Yeoman on the Alliance for Justice website here.