Attorney General William Barr gave a controversial press conference hours before releasing the Mueller report. Like we can’t read the report for ourselves? He’s had nearly a month to put out his own narrative on the report and then embed that narrative in the minds of the American public. Because of this and because of conflicting and overblown media reports, I really do recommend reading the report on your own. If not the full report, at least read the summaries at the beginning of each volume and the conclusions at the end of each volume.

Here are a few highlights from Barr’s take on the report:

1. Barr uses “collusion” and “coordination” interchangeably in his press conference, which is unusual for a lawyer of his caliber. They’re generally much more careful with terminology, and collusion is not a legal term (Mueller even states that in his report).
2. While Mueller laid out a pretty solid path to indict on obstruction, Barr says he doesn’t think the evidence is sufficient to charge Trump.
3. Barr says:
   “As you will see, the Special Counsel’s report states that his “investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.””
   But this leaves out contextual information. Here’s that full sentence from the report:
   “Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
   
4. Barr says, correctly, that we know:

• • The Russian government interfered in our elections through a social media campaign to sow disinformation and discord.
  • The GRU hacked into U.S. servers and stole documents and emails, which they later publicized.

5. Barr also says Russia didn’t have the knowing or intentional cooperation of Trump or his campaign, or any other American for that matter. However,the report clarifies that to meet the requirements of coordination would require an agreement, tacit or expressed.
6. Barr says that there’s not enough evidence to establish Trump committed obstruction of justice, despite all the evidence Mueller lays out. According to the report, Mueller actually declined to prosecute based on DOJ norms, and specifically says the evidence does not clear Trump and if it did, he would say so.

• • In neither his letters nor his statement does Barr give the reason Mueller gave for not deciding to prosecute. It wasn’t because he didn’t think there were crimes; it was because of DOJ guidelines around indicting a sitting president.

7. Barr only mentions the bolded part below, ignoring the remaining supporting information for obstruction of justice:
   

• • “…the evidence does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference. But the evidence does point to a range of other possible personal motives animating the President’s conduct. These include concerns that continued investigation would call into question the legitimacy of his election and potential uncertainty about whether certain events—such as advance notice of WikiLeaks’s release of hacked information or the June 9, 2016 meeting between senior campaign officials and Russians—could be seen as criminal activity by the President, his campaign, or his family.”
    

8. In his press conference, Barr goes into a lengthy defense of Trump, and even says if he did obstruct it was because he was frustrated over the investigation (let’s see how that excuse works for your everyday criminal).
9. Barr also says the White House cooperated with the investigation fully and completely, even though about 182 pages of the Mueller report is about obstructive actions, Trump refused to sit down for an interview, and he said he didn’t recall about 30 times in his written answers.
10. I‘m not clear if Barr means to say that Trump believes this investigation was propelled by his political enemies and fueled by illegal leaks or if that’s what Barr himself believes. It’s not clear in his speech or his transcript. Either way, it’s a weird thing for an attorney general to say.
    
11. Barr makes no mention of the plea deals and convictions that came from the investigation.
12. Barr implies that because there was no crime of conspiracy or coordination, Trump couldn’t be guilty of obstructing justice. Mueller directly contradicts that in the report, saying:“In addition, the President had a motive to put the FBI’s Russia investigation behind him… But the evidence does indicate that a thorough FBI investigation would uncover facts about the campaign and the President personally that the President could have understood to be crimes or that would give rise to personal and political concerns.”