It appears increasingly possible that Attorney General Bill Barr misled the public with his four-page summary declaring that special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation found no collusion from the Trump campaign and drew no conclusion about whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice.

Members of Mueller's team, after 22 months of scrupulous silence, are telling reporters that Barr isn't telling the whole story. And Trump — who has previously said he has no problem with releasing of the whole Mueller report — is suddenly waffling about releasing it. Why?

Whatever security redactions Barr makes to the eventual public release of the report, it's imperative that key congressional leaders see the full, unredacted version. If Trump truly deserves the vindication he's claiming, he should want the release to happen quickly.

Notwithstanding the public-relations blitz by Trump and his supporters, questions remain regarding the campaign's Russia connections and Trump's personal role in trying to thwart the investigation of them.

Trump confirmed on national television that he fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017 to end "this Russia thing." That's what led to the appointment of a special prosecutor in the first place. That might not rise to a legal definition of obstruction of justice, but Trump's intervention clearly meets the common-sense definition.

Did Trump take additional steps to obstruct the investigation? Mueller's report, according to Barr, leaves that unanswered. Barr himself went on to assert an answer to the question, concluding that there was no obstruction.

Barr was appointed attorney general by Trump after offering a long memo lambasting Mueller for even looking into the obstruction issue. For Barr now to rule on obstruction as if he's looked at it objectively almost rises to the level of parody.

There are legitimate security issues that justify some redactions of the report, and there are general prohibitions against releasing grand jury testimony. But even classified material can be and routinely is shared with the appropriate committees in Congress. And House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., has ample justification to ask that Barr seek a judge's approval to release the grand jury material.

To date, Barr hasn't. All indications are that he intends to give Congress the same redacted version of the report that will go to the public. Would Barr and Trump's other loyalists abuse the redaction process to withhold relevant, even damning material? Everything they've done so far indicates they would.

Every word of that report needs to be seen, if not by the public then at least by the relevant members of Congress. Democrats should demand this in court if necessary.

Trump can bellow "total exoneration" all he wants, but as long as he and his people are scrambling to prevent the airing of this report, that remains the best argument for opening it.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH