Heavy snow and difficult travel expected again, heaviest snow in southern Minnesota

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

 Members of Congress and the public now have a chance to read for themselves what special counsel Robert Mueller and his team of investigators found in their 22-month probe into 

Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election

There is a catch, however: Readers will not be able to feast their eyes on every word, sentence and paragraph the special counsel's office put to paper in the massive document.

The version made public on Thursday is partly redacted. Attorney General William Barr and his staff have been working with Mueller's team for the better part of a month to identify — and remove — segments of the document that contain four categories of sensitive information.

—Under federal rules, materials from grand jury proceedings are secret, although there are a few narrow exceptions that allow limited disclosure.

Democrats are currently wrestling with the Justice Department over access to grand jury materials in the Mueller report. The Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jerry Nadler, 

 the full, unredacted report if the Justice Department doesn't hand it over voluntarily, setting the stage for a potentially protracted legal battle.

—The report contains information that comes from U.S. intelligence agencies. Officials are concerned that the public release of some of that information could reveal how the U.S. got it — compromising sources and methods that America's spies want to protect.

Information related to ongoing investigations

— A number of high-profile investigations have been spun out of Mueller's Russia probe. The most notable one, perhaps, was the case in New York City brought against President Trump's 

former personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen

Details in the Mueller report that could reveal information about other ongoing investigations are scrubbed out of the redacted version.

Derogatory information about "peripheral" individuals

 he wants to honor the Justice Department's practice of not revealing information it has uncovered about people who were part of an investigation but whom it is not accusing of a crime. Trump won't be covered by such redactions, he said, but the Justice Department is excising detail from the report about people who aren't public officeholders.

This category has been a source of significant concern for many congressional Democrats. One lawmaker called it a category big enough to drive a truck through. It's unclear, however, whether the president's family members or high-ranking members of his campaign would be covered by this exception.

Crime, Law and Justice

Politics and Government News

Alyson Hurt

Author

Ryan Lucas

Thomas Wilburn

Attorney General William Barr explained before the release of the special counsel report that the law and regulations kept him from including everything that Robert Mueller uncovered, as well as how.

The entire redacted report by special counsel Robert Mueller

See how much of the Mueller report is redacted

Go Deeper.

Like this?