‘Looks like a coverup’: Rachel Maddow Show breaks down why ‘something just doesn’t add up’ with AG Barr’s actions

MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show" on Tuesday examined the bombshell New York Times report that some special counsel investigators believe Attorney General Bill Barr misled the American people with his summary of Robert Mueller's report.

"Who could have seen this coming?" Maddow asked, as she displayed a New York Times article titled, "Some on Mueller’s Team See Their Findings as More Damaging for Trump Than Barr Revealed."

"Who could have seen this coming?" she repeated.

Maddow then proceeded to recap the public debate occurring since Mueller submitted his findings to Barr.

"You mean to tell me when the newly-installed Trump Attorney General decided to sit on the Mueller report and not release to it anyone -- not a single page?" she asked. "And instead the White House and Congressional Republicans and conservative media tried to claim total vindication for the president in Mueller's report based just on attorney general Barr's odd, vague characterization of what he says Mueller concluded -- which the A.G. then later said shouldn't even be taken as a summary of what Mueller concluded."

"You mean to tell me that maybe the Mueller report isn't as exactly as exciting and positive and exculpatory for the president as the Trump administration and conservative media and Congressional Republicans would have you believe?" Maddow asked. "Really? Who could have seen this coming?"

"Hope you've enjoyed your victory laps," she added.

Former solicitor general Neal Katyal, who wrote the special counsel regulations while working at the Department of Justice, joined Maddow for analysis.

"I think what's really extraordinary about this, as you were saying just towards the end of your discussion, is we've gone 22 months, we've never heard anything from team Mueller until tonight," he noted. "And that just I think underscores that what Barr did in those two letters and the games he's been playing are deeply damaging and the Mueller team is evidently not going to stand for it."

"The whole idea behind the special counsel regulations, because the Constitution gives the Attorney General the full prosecution power, the idea is to say Attorney General, if you start messing with the special counsel, then it's got to be public, there's got to be sunlight on that," he explained.

"And the ultimate safeguard is what we're seeing play out tonight, which is if an Attorney General starts to abuse the special counsel's report, abuse the special counsel's findings, then the special counsel will come forward and shed sunlight into what might look like a cover-up," he noted.

"And that is what we're starting to see now, something that looks like a cover-up," Katyal concluded.

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