Monica Lewinsky's Tweet About Barr's Summary Of The Mueller Report Is Pure Fire
Just about everyone has taken to social media to react to the news that FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe did not find evidence that Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election. While some have reacted positively to the revelation, there are others who aren't so thrilled at how things have panned out — others like Monica Lewinsky. Monica Lewinsky's tweet about Barr's summary of the Mueller report actually went off, and with good reason.
Lewinsky, a former White House intern who became a household name in the late '90s after reports of her affair with President Bill Clinton, tweeted on the heels of a letter shared by U.S. Attorney General William Barr on March 24 that summarized Mueller's findings. So far, the full report has been kept tightly under wraps, with the public only having Barr's account to go off of. The secrecy has prompted comparisons to the handling of the Clinton-era probe by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr into Clinton's affair with Lewinsky, which, famously, went into explicit detail about the sexual relationship between the two. Starr's 453-page report in 1998 went into what The Daily Beast called "pornographic detail," including accounts of some infamous, um, acts in the Oval Office, and was still released to the public. A a result, Lewinsky was subjected to public shaming and mockery, and Clinton was impeached in Congress for alleged obstruction of justice and alleged perjury for his comments about the affair, although he was acquitted by the Senate.
University of Southern California (USC) professor Orin Kerr took to Twitter on March 26 to draw a comparison to the investigations, tweeting:
Imagine if the Starr Report had been provided only to President Clinton's Attorney General, Janet Reno, who then read it privately and published a 4-page letter based on her private reading stating her conclusion that President Clinton committed no crimes.
Apparently, Lewinsky couldn't have agreed more. She followed up with a tweet on March 27 that read "if. f*cking. only."
I hear you, girl. Lewinsky has repeatedly shared how severely the scandal affected her after the affair was made public, calling it "painful and traumatic" and characterizing it as a fall "down the rabbit hole." In recent years, she's made headlines for her anti-bullying activism and become a speaker and advocate on the subject. The handling of the scandal has also been re-evaluated in a modern context, with many concluding that Lewinsky was subjected to sexist shaming and unfair treatment by the public as a result of the scandal. So it's gotta suck seeing the Mueller report being handled with such different care.
At this point, everyone has been on their toes waiting for the full report. There's no rule saying it has to be released, though, so it's unclear whether we'll ever get a glimpse of it. Elite Daily previously reached out to the Department of Justice for comment on whether the report will be released, but did not hear back. For now, all we know is that Trump and his campaign have been cleared of collusion with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election and that Mueller didn't totally clear Trump of obstruction (though Barr later did).
Still, that hasn't stopped Democrats from demanding it. According to Politico, they've asked for Barr to turn over the report by April 2, saying his summary was not "sufficient" enough. For his part, Barr is reportedly planning on releasing a public "version" of the report, which will have redacted information, in "weeks, not months." Elite Daily reached out to the DOJ for comment on or confirmation of those reported comments, but did not immediately hear back.
Hopefully he'll follow through so that Lewinsky can maybe have some sort of solace. We'll see.
