Speaker Nancy Pelosi told House Democrats in a private meeting that Attorney General William Barr’s words cannot be taken at face value, CNN reports, arguing Barr got the job by authoring a memo criticizing special counsel Robert Mueller’s obstruction probe.

Pelosi told her caucus that said Barr’s job is to defend the President.

Said Pelosi: “We have to see the report. We cannot make a judgment on the basis of an interpretation by a man who was hired for his job because he believes the President is above the law and he wrote a 19-page memo to demonstrate that.”

John Harris: “We can’t all seem to agree that it’s a good thing the president didn’t conspire with Russia, nor can we all admit that the Kremlin may have helped elect Trump.”

“Forty-five years ago, after Watergate resulted in Richard Nixon’s resignation, even Republicans joined in the ritual sermonizing about how the episode proved the primacy of law. No doubt even in those days there was ample pretense beneath the piety—of course Democrats were gloating and Republicans were plotting payback. But the very fact that they bothered to pretend revealed a basic respect that American political culture was on the level.”

“These days, the one point on which warring sides all seem to agree is that American political culture in the Trump era is fundamentally not on the level. The Trump-Russia episode proves the primacy not of law or even of politics, both of which are designed to reconcile conflicting values and lead to resolution. It shows the primacy of psychology, in which current events represent a nonstop Rorschach test — what does it look like to you? — and virtually no factual assertion can be embraced at face value. In this prism, the main purpose of argument is to show fidelity to the home team, and not to settle a matter but to keep it going.”

The FBI is prepared to brief congressional leaders on the counterintelligence findings of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, NBC News reports.

“The FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into President Trump, and the letter sent to Congress on Sunday by Attorney General William Barr about the Mueller probe is silent on the question of whether investigators found that Trump or anyone around him might be compromised or influenced by Russia.”

“The officials said they expect the FBI to brief the so-called Gang of 8 — the leaders of the House and the Senate and the chairmen and ranking members of the intelligence committees — in closed session.”

“Donald Trump’s lawyers — including the ones who don’t appear on television but spent a career practicing federal criminal law — never seriously worried their client would be accused of a Russia conspiracy,” three sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.

“For Martin and Jane Raskin, a husband and wife duo from Miami who came aboard Trump’s legal team last April, the real threat was obstruction of justice.”

“The Raskins, former prosecutors with decades of experience doing battle with the Justice Department, worked in coordination with constitutional lawyer Jay Sekulow, who led the Trump legal team. The Raskins dealt directly with Mueller’s office, the sources said. And by the time they arrived, Mueller’s prosecutors rarely asked probing questions about Russia.”