We the people have a hell of a mess on our hands. Mueller released his 448-page report to Barr who then hid it from the congress, the news media, and the American people for over a month. But within 48 hours of receiving the report he released a four-page synopsis that turned out to be a false and distorted summary.

The Barr letter purported to exonerate Trump, who promptly went on a victory lap across the country proclaiming “no collusion, no obstruction of justice.” In other words “total exoneration.”

Mueller pushed back against the Barr letter on March 27 with a letter of his own taking Barr to task for distorting and mis-characterizing his findings. The two men then had a phone conversation where Mueller once again emphasized that, due to the Barr letter, the press was giving a false view of the findings of the Mueller Report to the public. Even worse, Barr lied in his testimony before congress when Chris Van Hollen asked him if Mueller agreed with his four-page synopsis. He replied that “he didn’t know how Mueller felt about the conclusions in his letter.” This was a complete lie!

We also now know that the Mueller Report did not include inferences from still ongoing intelligence investigations into Trump’s possible involvement in Russian attacks on our elections. The conclusion that Trump was not guilty of conspiracy with the Russians in his own election campaign would appear to be astoundingly premature.

We also know that AG Barr provided the White House with a copy of the report at least one week prior to the release of the report (with redactions) to congress and the people of the United States. He held a news conference two hours before the release of the (redacted) Mueller Report. In this news conference, he totally misstated the conclusions of the Mueller Report. He drew conclusions — “no conclusion” and “spying on the Trump campaign” — which were not in the Mueller Report.

AG Barr has lost any credibility that he might have had. Rather than serving as “The People’s Attorney” he has chosen to act as Trump’s attorney. A year ago Trump asked, “Where is my Roy Cohn?” We now know that he found him in the personage of William Barr. Mr. Barr must go. Either he must resign or he must be impeached.

Jim Porter

Danville