Screengrab from https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1115615769142763520

Attorney General William Barr is taking questions from the House Appropriations Committee this morning. While he’s testifying on Department of Justice’s budget submission most of the questions revolve around the Mueller report.

Major point: The Mueller report will be released in a week. This is pretty amazing turnaround considering the same Department of Justice declassification monkeys delayed the House Judiciary and House Intelligence Committees for over a year.

Attorney General William Barr says he "will be in a position to release" the Mueller report to the public, with some redactions, "within a week."

"We will provide explanatory notes describing the basis for each redaction," he adds https://t.co/3WVWtz5MAB pic.twitter.com/m67KukAx31

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) April 9, 2019

Second item: the spin wars are about to start. Barr made it very clear that the House is not getting a clean copy of the investigation. In his March 29 letter he warned that four categories of material would be redacted: “(1) material subject to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e) that by law cannot be made public; (2) material the intelligence community identities as potentially compromising sensitive sources and methods; (3) material that could affect other ongoing matters, including those that the Special Counsel has referred to other Department offices; and (4) information that would unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties.”

"The American people want to see the [Mueller] report. I think it would strike a serious blow to our system and to our democracy if that report is not fully seen." —Rep. José Serrano, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee, to AG Barr
Via CBS pic.twitter.com/ivwPrihydA

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 9, 2019

Unhappiness aside, a DC circuit ruling last week pretty much closed the door on making grand jury testimony available outside a judicial process. And it is unlikely that the Democrats really want to have exculpatory evidence that shows Carter Page, Michael Flynn, and George Papdapoulos had nothing to do with any illicit contacts with any other nation released. Better to keep it redacted and simply lie about what the redactions conceal.

More on this hearing as it progresses.

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