WASHINGTON ― Attorney General William Barr, appearing to play the role of President Donald Trump’s defender, held a bizarre news conference Thursday morning ahead of the expected release of a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s highly anticipated report. “President Trump faced an unprecedented situation,” Barr said at the news conference held at the Justice Department. “As he entered into office, and sought to perform his responsibilities as president, federal agents and prosecutors were scrutinizing his conduct before and after taking office, and the conduct of some of his associates.” He continued: “At the same time, there was relentless speculation in the news media about the president’s personal culpability. Yet, as he said from the beginning, there was in fact no collusion.” The attorney general, in his remarks Thursday, said the president’s legal counsel requested and reviewed a redacted version of Mueller’s nearly 400-page report on Russian interference in the 2016 election ahead of its release Thursday. Following that review, Trump decided not to assert executive privilege to redact information within the report, though he would have been “well within his rights to do so,” Barr said. “The president confirmed that, in the interests of transparency and full disclosure to the American people, he would not assert privilege over the special counsel’s report,” Barr said Thursday. “Accordingly, the public report I am releasing today contains redactions only for the four categories that I previously outlined, and no material has been redacted based on executive privilege.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS Attorney General William Barr speaks alongside Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (right) and Deputy Attorney General Ed O'Callaghan (left) about Mueller's report during a news conference on Thursday at the Department of Justice in Washington.

Barr said earlier this month that Trump indicated he was leaving the decision on executive privilege to the attorney general. Barr said at the time that he had “no plan” to claim executive privilege to hold back any of the Mueller report. As he stated during congressional hearings on Capitol Hill earlier this month, the publicly released Mueller report will be redacted with regard to four areas: grand jury material, intelligence sources and methods, information that could jeopardize ongoing investigations, and material Barr believes could unfairly damage the reputations of “peripheral third parties.” Though Barr repeatedly stated there was “no collusion,” as Trump has parroted for years, he noted Mueller’s report counted 10 “episodes” of potential obstruction of justice by the president. Barr reiterated that both he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded there was not sufficient evidence to prove Trump committed an obstruction of justice. He said they disagreed with some of the Mueller report’s “legal theories” about obstruction. “We did not rely solely on that in making our decision,” Barr said Thursday. “Instead, we accepted the special counsel’s legal framework for purposes of our analysis and evaluated the evidence as presented by the special counsel in reaching our conclusion.” Barr said evidence showed Trump was “frustrated and angered” by concerns that the investigation was undermining his presidency, yet “fully cooperated” with Mueller’s investigation. Trump’s legal counsel, in fact, prevented Mueller from interviewing the president, despite the special counsel’s repeated requests to do so.

LIVE: Attorney General Barr says he and Rosenstein disagreed with some of Mueller's 'legal theories' about obstruction of justice https://t.co/3XOYFfdxMF — Reuters Top News (@Reuters) April 18, 2019