Robert Mueller testifies: Live updates - CNN

Rep. John Ratcliffe referred to this section in his remarks at today's hearing:

"At the conclusion of the Special Counsel's work, he or she shall provide the Attorney General with a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the Special Counsel."

There’s a lot of debate about what the regulations allow and there are different interpretations.

Critics believe former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal was trying to rewrite history with the regulations to allow for more to be released.

Only two people have served as special counsel under these regulations. And both of their reports were publicly released, even though public release of the report is not mentioned or required in the regulations.

The rules are different than those that former independent counsel Ken Starr was working under in the mid-1990s when he prosecuted the Clinton White House over Whitewater and then the Monica Lewinsky scandal and delivered a report directly to Congress.

The first was Jack Danforth, appointed in 1999 to investigate the deadly Waco standoff and allegations of a government coverup. His team didn't wait around for Justice Department higher-ups to examine their final product. They posted their full report directly onto the burgeoning Internet, along with hundreds of pages of detailed exhibits and timelines.

Mueller’s report was also released but he submitted it to the Justice Department and Attorney General William Barr for redactions. Barr ultimately released a report that only had some light redactions.

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