Read Attorney General William Barr's Full Remarks Ahead of the Mueller Report Release

Attorney General William Barr delivered remarks Thursday before releasing a redacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

As they did with Barr’s four-page letter about the report’s conclusions last month, Democrats criticized the press conference as an attempt to defend President Donald Trump and offer a “partisan” summary of the redacted report before the public could read it in full. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for Mueller to testify before Congress directly.

Barr said Thursday he “concluded that the evidence developed by the Special Counsel is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction of justice offense,” adding that he disagreed with some of the “legal theories” presented by Mueller in his report. Barr also said that all redactions in the report were made by Justice Department and intelligence officials, meaning Trump made no redactions based on executive privilege.

“That is the bottom line,” Barr said Thursday. “After nearly two years of investigation, thousands of subpoenas, and hundreds of warrants and witness interviews, the Special Counsel confirmed that the Russian government sponsored efforts to illegally interfere with the 2016 presidential election but did not find that the Trump campaign or other Americans colluded in those schemes.”

Read Barr’s full remarks here, as prepared for delivery: