It turns out that special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election is more than 300 pages long, according to “officials with knowledge of it,” reports the New York Times.
Only a very few people have seen the full report — and no one in Congress — but the sheer length of it makes many wonder what Attorney General William Barr must have left out of the four-page summary of what he called Mueller’s “principal conclusions,” submitted to lawmakers on Sunday.
“The total of 300-plus pages suggests that Mr. Mueller went well beyond the kind of bare-bones summary required by the Justice Department regulation governing his appointment and detailed his conclusions at length,” says the Times.
The Justice Department has characterized the report as “comprehensive,” and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), after speaking with Barr about it on Wednesday, called it “very substantial.”
It all seems certain to fuel more demands that the entire report be made public. That, however, is highly unlikely.
“Members of Mr. Barr and Mr. Mueller’s teams are currently reviewing the full report to redact information that they do not believe should be made public for intelligence or other reasons,” the Times says. Barr has told lawmakers it will take weeks to make more of Mr. Mueller’s findings public.
“Mueller’s team issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search warrants and interviewed more than 500 witnesses,” reports the Huffington Post. “That means the special counsel likely compiled thousands, if not millions, of documents and pieces of evidence,” including “emails and encrypted text messages … hard drives and laptops” and possibly even tax returns.
The Times says the Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
