“The Barr memo was worded and released in such a way that implied Mueller had given Trump a pass on obstruction, a point which was picked up in news coverage of Barr’s description. When the Mueller report itself became public this month however, it became clear that Mueller had compiled a substantial obstruction case, leaving it to Congress to decide whether to pursue it. Barr’s release of the report’s findings… went to great lengths to set a narrative that Trump was in the clear and give it time to congeal well before there was any information available to refute Trump’s barrage of self-exculpatory tweets.”
Elliot Hannon, Slate

“For an institutionalist like Mr. Mueller, who never once spoke up to defend himself or his work from relentless attacks from the president and his Republican allies, the letter is an unusual (and welcome) breach of protocol… The regulations governing Mr. Mueller’s work call for a ‘confidential’ report to the attorney general at the conclusion of the inquiry, which the attorney general may then release if he determined it ‘would be in the public interest.’ That Mr. Mueller quoted from this regulatory language in his letter to Mr. Barr shows that he cares about rules, perhaps to a fault. But it alsoshows that Mr. Mueller sensed the urgency of his conclusions — and that he couldn’t sit idly by as the chief legal officer of the United States actively undermined them.”
Editorial Board, New York Times

“Barr's Senate testimony on Wednesday was a master class in obfuscation, backtracking and blame-shifting… When asked how a political campaign should react if approached by a foreign national offering dirt, Barr didn't give the only correct and sensible answer -- ‘run and call the FBI’ -- but instead twisted himself in a pretzel, saying the person should first try to ascertain if the foreigner is an intel agent. And Barr pretended not to understand what basic words such as ‘receptive’ and ‘suggest’ mean, when Democrats had the nerve to use such ‘technical’ terms.”
Elie Honig, CNN

“There was a tortured exchange about the fact that, as Mueller details, Trump instructed then-White House Counsel Donald McGahn to have Mueller fired, and then when that was reported in the press, instructed McGahn to deny it publicly. The report even describes Trump insisting to McGahn that because he had not used the word ‘fire,’ that meant he didn’t really tell McGahn to have Mueller fired, and that meant McGahn could publicly insist that Trump never told him to have Mueller fired. McGahn, perhaps realizing how absurd that was, refused… As Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) later said about a separate matter, ‘That’s some masterful hairsplitting.’”
Paul Waldman, Washington Post

Regarding the larger question of the attorney general’s powers over special counsel investigations, some note that “the special counsel regulations [were] produced in 1999 by Janet Reno’s Department of Justice under Bill Clinton’s administration… For the drafters of the special counsel regulations then, the goal was to create a mechanism that would still allow investigation of the president, but would prevent future Starrs from going on what the Clinton administration perceived as witch hunts against future presidents. Putting the special counsel under the supervision of the attorney general was the centerpiece of the strategy…

“Somehow, in the course of building up trust in Mueller over the last two years, many Democrats conveniently forgot that the regulations drafted by Democrats would allow the attorney general to minimize or even subvert Mueller’s findings… Blame the regulations for Barr’s distortions — and fix them. Rest assured, there will be a next time.”
Noah Feldman, Bloomberg