The fallacy of equating the Barr Memo with the Mueller Report undermines our Democracy

Attorney General William Barr with President George H.W. Bush. Barr helped orchestrate the pardons of key . figures in the Iran-Contra scandal, which helped Bush and Reagan avoid culpability in their role in espionage and treason. Photo by Marcy Nighswander/AP.

A phenomenon emerged, at dangerous speed, within hours of Barr releasing his 4 page summary of the Mueller Report. A fast growing number of news outlets reported on March 24, 2019 that the Mueller Report had exonerated Donald J. Trump, despite no news outlet having read the Report itself.

All of the reporting relied on a 4 page memo from Attorney General William Barr. And a number of pundits began publishing essays that declared ‘Democrats’ needed to move on from Russian Collusion. An example of this is The Intercept, complaining since 2017 about Rachel Maddow’s reporting of the Trump campaign and administration’s ties with Russian oligarchs, as expected, published a transcript of a podcast titled, “THE DAY AFTER MUELLER,” which said that Dr. Maddow was lying to her audience …

JS: You know, Margaret Sullivan wrote a column in the Washington Post on Monday where she was sort of defending print journalists in particular. Is there a distinction worth drawing though when we talk about the way cable news covered this? And I’m thinking particularly of Rachel Maddow, obviously, is probably exhibit A in sort of hyping this constantly, or you know Glenn says “lying” every night to millions of people. Chris Hayes though had on Jonathan Chait.