Conspiracy Theorists Will Have a Field Day With a Redacted Mueller Report
History shows that skeptics seize on redacted information to fuel their theories
As the political world anxiously awaits the release of Robert Mueller’s report Thursday morning, much of the focus has been on what we won’t see. It’s quite likely the version that’s released to the public will be heavily redacted. Though legitimate reasons exist for the government to excise sensitive information from a public document, any omissions threaten to inspire conspiracy theories about why parts of the report was suppressed, particularly after Attorney General William Barr rushed out his own interpretation of Mueller’s findings — which favored President Trump — in a letter to Congress within 48 hours of receiving the document.
Barr said the delay in the report’s public release could be attributed to the tedious process of redacting key information. He specifically said government lawyers will omit secret grand jury testimony, information that could compromise intelligence sources and methods or ongoing investigations, and information about private citizens who are peripheral to the case.
The problem is that Barr cannot credibly commit to only redact information that is truly sensitive, especially after he already said the…
