In brief, then, Barr has laid out a short time frame in which he has promised to make a capacious set of disclosures subject to a few discrete areas of necessary confidentiality. While these are, to be sure, potentially abusable, they are on their own terms legitimate. And Barr has taken off the table executive privilege, at least as a default matter in the absence of presidential action. This all seems pretty reasonable to me.
If the Mueller report does not come out promptly in a form that allows the public to understand and evaluate his findings, there will be plenty of time to fight then over what was withheld and to fault Barr for removing too much, or for removing material in a politically-inflected fashion. But until that happens, I’m going to assume his good faith.
Call me naive. Call me old school. Call me not in touch with the ethos of the moment. But I’ll assume that Barr’s oath of office meant something to him.
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