Attorney General William Barr is defending his short summary of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on his Russia investigation. Barr says his summary accurately captured the report's conclusions.
In an interview broadcast Friday on "CBS This Morning," Barr said he was "just trying to state the bottom line."
Mueller subsequently protested in a letter to Barr that the four-page summary "did not fully capture the context, nature and substance" of his report on Russia meddling in the 2016 election and contacts with the Trump campaign.
Critics have accused Barr of spinning the report's findings to favor President Donald Trump. In a public statement earlier this week, Mueller pointedly denied that his investigation exonerated Trump of wrongdoing. Mueller said that if he "had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime," the report would have said so.
Mueller said Justice Department policy prevented charging the president with a crime.
Barr, in the CBS interview, said he disagreed with Mueller's assessment that the evidence didn't exonerate Trump. He said that Mueller "could have reached a decision as to whether it was criminal activity."
