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- The Barr letter is a four-page letter sent on March 24, 2019, from Attorney General William Barr to leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees detailing the purported "principal conclusions" of the Mueller report of the Special Counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller into Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 United States presidential election, allegations of conspiracy or coordination between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia, and allegations of obstruction of justice. Even before seeing the Mueller report, Barr had already decided to clear Trump of obstruction. To this end, he tasked the Office of Legal Counsel with writing a memo that would justify this decision. The Barr letter was written over the course of two days in tandem with the legal memo on which the letter ostensibly relied. After the release of the redacted report on April 18, 2019, Barr's letter was criticized as a deliberate mischaracterization of the Mueller Report and its conclusions, and as an attempt at spinning the media narrative to undermine Mueller's investigation. In March 2020, a federal judge sharply criticized Barr's characterizations and ordered the Justice Department to provide him the redacted portions from the public version of the report so he could determine if they were justified. (en)
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