President Trump‘s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani said Thursday that White House lawyers saw special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Tuesday — two days before its release to the public — as they prepared a rebuttal.
“I read every page. … We started on Tuesday night,” Giuliani said on Fox News shortly after the redacted report was released. “We went to the Justice Department, in a secured room. We couldn’t take it out, we couldn’t photograph it.”
Giuliani said that he and White House lawyers Jay Sekulow, Marty Raskin and Jane Raskin each reviewed the entire redacted report before sharing their thoughts.
{mosads}They did not receive their own copy of the report but were allowed to take notes, Giuliani added.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that Trump’s legal team had early access to the report and discussed it with Justice Department officials.
Giuliani told the Wall Street Journal that Trump’s legal team received “no guidance on our counter-report” from the Justice Department.
Democrats slammed Attorney General William Barr and the Justice Department following the New York Times report, saying the White House getting the report early dented the Justice Department’s credibility.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said he was “deeply troubled” by the Times report that the White House was briefed on the Mueller report.
“I’m deeply troubled by reports that the WH is being briefed on the Mueller report AHEAD of its release. Now, DOJ is informing us we will not receive the report until around 11/12 tomorrow afternoon — AFTER Barr’s press conference. This is wrong,” he tweeted.
“News reports suggesting that the White House was briefed on the #MuellerReport ahead of its release and that the DOJ intends to brief the press before receipt of the report are troubling,” Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) tweeted.
A redacted version of the report was released Thursday on the Justice Department’s website, shortly after Barr delivered a summary of the findings and took questions from reporters.