Congress is on a two-week recess. Americans are on spring break, with worshipers gathering for Good Friday, Passover and Easter across the country. For an attorney general who has operated more as a flack and a flunky than an independent official concerned with justice, Thursday is the perfect day to dump a report, script a response and be sure that most Americans aren’t paying attention. And an unexpected distraction, the burning of Notre-Dame Cathedral, means most of the world won’t be focused on Washington either.

Attorney General William Barr is counting on us to be satisfied that the report is not as heavily redacted as feared. And while a few members of Congress will get a less redacted version — absent grand jury material — the American public and the Congress have a right to know about Russian interference in our election, Russian contacts with the presidential campaign of Donald Trump and evidence of obstruction of justice by the president. In that light, even these redactions are too many.

The “18-and-a-half-minute gap” — a stretch of audiotape from the White House that had been suspiciously erased — is a shameful reminder of how certain insiders serving in the Nixon administration worked to cover up the president’s crimes. While some Nixon aides are now venerated for refusing to carry out corrupt instructions during the Watergate inquiries, others bear the stain of helping the president hide misconduct.

When history judges Attorney General William Barr, the verdict on his decision to withhold large portions of the final report by the special counsel Robert Mueller from Congress is likely to be severe. Of course, we don’t know what lies underneath these redactions, but we have reason to worry: Mr. Barr has shown little appetite for asserting independence from President Trump.