White House complained to Barr about contents of special counsel report after its release

The White House last month lodged a formal complaint with the Justice Department over the findings of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III — and made clear that President Trump believes he retains the right to assert executive privilege over material contained in the report, despite its public release.

The five-page letter was authored by Emmet Flood, who has handled the Mueller investigation for the White House counsel’s office, and submitted to Attorney General William P. Barr on April 19, the day after Barr released a redacted version of the report.

The letter was provided to The Washington Post by a White House official one day after Barr criticized Mueller during a contentious appearance in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The attorney general described a letter from the special counsel asking him to release summaries of his report as “snitty” and said he was confused by Mueller’s decision that he could not come to a conclusion at the end of his obstruction-of-justice inquiry.

In his report, Mueller wrote that he believed that because a Justice Department policy holds that the president cannot be indicted while in office, the special counsel’s office could not make an assessment on whether the president had broken the law.

“While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” Mueller wrote in his 448-page report, which laid out evidence gathered about potential acts of obstruction by Trump.

In his April 19 letter, Flood accused Mueller of exceeding his authority by spilling into public view a recitation of facts far more detailed than what is typically included in criminal indictments. He described the report as “prosecutorial curiosity — part ‘truth commission’ report and part law school exam paper.”