THERE MAY BE FEWER READABLE WORDS IN THE REDACTED MUELLER REPORT THAN IN THE BARR LETTER

To know what Republicans are thinking, sometimes it pays to go to the right-wing media. Here's the lead paragraph of a Washington Times story about the Mueller report:

Every page of special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report may contain confidential grand jury information, limiting how much it the public may ultimately see, a Justice Department spokeswoman said Thursday.

The story doesn't elaborate on the statement from Justice's Kerri Kupec, but I think it's a signal that William Barr intends to redact the bejesus out of the report -- possibly (as I said in my last post) treating negative passages about President Trump and the members of his family as material detrimental to "peripheral third parties," so defined by Barr because Mueller didn't prove Trump's involvement in a conspiracy, Barr cleared the president of obstruction of justice, and no Trump or Kushner was indicted.

The leaks we're seeing now might not be a delayed reaction to Barr's "nothing to see here" summary of the report -- they may be a response to what's happening in the redaction process, or what Mueller staffers think is happening.

I think Barr's plan is to release a report that has more redactions than text, after which he'll claim that he released everything he lawfully could, and it just so happens that what's left skews in the president's favor. And that'll be the end of it -- the mainstream media will run TRUMP EXONERATED headlines again, the non-deplorable public will still be skeptical, and the deplorables will do more victory dances. And Trump's poll numbers still won't budge.