William Barr has a History of Withholding Key Information from Congress (Audio)

Attorney General William P. Barr delivers a redacted version of the Mueller report on Thursday. This is nearly a month after Barr released a summary of the report’s key findings, immediately after it was submitted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

But House Democrats, among others, have raised questions about the Attorney General’s intent, and whether or not he’s used summaries and redactions to provide political cover to President Trump.

In 1989, when Barr was head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, he penned a memo that defended President George HW Bush’s abduction of General Manuel Noriega during the 1989 invasion of Panama.

When lawmakers wanted to see the memo, he instead provided a summary, one that, with the benefit of hindsight, withheld key information in an attempt to mislead Congress.

Ryan Goodman is the editor-in-chief of Just Security and former special counsel to the Department of Defense, and he’s been writing about the lessons we can take from 1989 on the day of the Mueller report’s release.