--- title: Read Mueller's Letter to William Barr Critiquing AG Summary description: Mueller sent a letter to AG Barr on March 27, noting that the AG's summary "did not fully capture the context" of the 448-page report. canonical: https://time.com/5581055/robert-mueller-william-barr-letter-transcript/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-05-01T14:52:26.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T23:25:26.127Z article:section: Politics og:title: Read Robert Mueller's Letter Critiquing the Attorney General's Summary of His Report og:description: "There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation" og:url: https://time.com/5581055/robert-mueller-william-barr-letter-transcript/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc289e90ce75e696d/69894946096a94812a6a5032/robert-mueller-letter-william-barr.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Former FBI Director Robert Mueller, special counsel on the Russian investigation, leaves following a meeting with members of the US Senate Judiciary Committee at the US Capitol in Washington, DC on June 21, 2017 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Read Robert Mueller's Letter Critiquing the Attorney General's Summary of His Report twitter:description: "There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc289e90ce75e696d/69894946096a94812a6a5032/robert-mueller-letter-william-barr.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Read Robert Mueller's Letter to William Barr Critiquing the Attorney General's Summary of His Report > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. by [Kathy Ehrich Dowd](https://time.com/author/kathy-dowd/) ## Kathy Ehrich Dowd May 1, 2019 2:52 PM UTC  Former FBI Director Robert Mueller, special counsel on the Russian investigation, leaves following a meeting with members of the US Senate Judiciary Committee at the US Capitol in Washington, DC on June 21, 2017. Former FBI Director Robert Mueller, special counsel on the Russian investigation, leaves following a meeting with members of the US Senate Judiciary Committee at the US Capitol in Washington, DC on June 21, 2017. Saul Loeb—AFP/Getty Images by [Kathy Ehrich Dowd](https://time.com/author/kathy-dowd/) ## Kathy Ehrich Dowd May 1, 2019 2:52 PM UTC For more than a month, Americans speculated about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s reaction to the four-page summary Attorney General William Barr released shortly after he [received a confidential copy of the long-awaited report](http://time.com/5557315/mueller-report-trump/) on March 22. Now, that question is answered. On Tuesday morning, House Judiciary Democrats [released the full letter Mueller sent to Barr](http://time.com/5580823/mueller-frustrated-barr-report-trump/) on March 27, in which he pointedly noted that the Attorney General’s summary “did not fully capture the context, nature and substance” of the 448-page report his team worked on for more than two years. The release of the letter came just before [Barr’s appearance in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee](http://time.com/5581056/william-barr-testify-congress-mueller-report/) to discuss the report, which the Attorney General [publicly released in redacted form on April 18](http://time.com/5567077/mueller-report-release/). Two days after initially receiving the report, Barr released a four-page summary on March 24 that briefly outlined the report’s “principal conclusions” to Congress. In it, Barr stated that Mueller did not establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, and that he did not conclude whether the President obstructed justice. Trump and some of his allies later falsely used Barr’s summary to claim the President had been exonerated. Mueller’s March 27 letter lays bare his frustrations with Barr’s summary, and the public reaction to it. “The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature and substance of this Office’s work and conclusions. We communicated that concern to the Department on March 25\. There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigation.” Read the full letter here: > [](https://twitter.com/HouseJudiciary/status/1123584968960172033) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5581055/robert-mueller-william-barr-letter-transcript/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5581055/robert-mueller-william-barr-letter-transcript/"},"headline":"Read Robert Mueller's Letter to William Barr Critiquing the Attorney General's Summary of His Report","datePublished":"2019-05-01T14:52:26.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T23:25:26.127Z","description":"\"There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation\"","url":"https://time.com/5581055/robert-mueller-william-barr-letter-transcript/","keywords":["justice","Congress","transcripts","onetime","Robert Mueller"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc289e90ce75e696d/69894946096a94812a6a5032/robert-mueller-letter-william-barr.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Kathy Ehrich Dowd","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/kathy-dowd/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc289e90ce75e696d/69894946096a94812a6a5032/robert-mueller-letter-william-barr.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Former FBI Director Robert Mueller, special counsel on the Russian investigation, leaves following a meeting with members of the US Senate Judiciary Committee at the US Capitol in Washington, DC on June 21, 2017","caption":"robert-mueller-letter-william-barr","creditText":"Saul Loeb—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/justice/","name":"justice"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5581055/robert-mueller-william-barr-letter-transcript/","name":"Read Robert Mueller's Letter to William Barr Critiquing the Attorney General's Summary of His Report"}}]}] ```