The Justice Department is expecting Special Counsel Robert Mueller to issue the final report on his investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election as early as next week, multiple outlets reported Wednesday.
Mueller is required to submit a “confidential” report to the Justice Department, which is under no obligation to share it with Congress or the public, although Attorney General Bill Barr must brief Congress on its contents. Barr has said he wants to be as “transparent” as possible and “consistent with the rules and the law” in sharing the Mueller report.
President Trump said he would leave it up to the attorney general as to whether the report is released.
“That’ll be totally up to the new attorney general. He’s a tremendous man, a tremendous person, who really respects this country and respects the Justice Department, so that’ll be totally up to him,” Trump said.
Mueller’s probe has led to the indictments of several high-profile Trump associates, including long-time adviser Roger Stone, long-time personal lawyer Michael Cohen, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, and former campaign surrogate and national-security adviser Michael Flynn.
Stone, the most recent of those indicted, was arraigned last month on seven counts related to his contacts with WikiLeaks, which released thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton, and Clinton campaign manager John Podesta. The U.S. intelligence community believes the emails were first obtained by Russian hackers.