--- 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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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=79284713-954c-41ff-a59e-ea136cf6bb42&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) 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"}}]}] ```