The Post revealed Tuesday that, shortly after Mr. Barr released his memo, Mr. Mueller sent a letter to the attorney general, objecting that the memo “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the special counsel’s report. Mr. Barr did not mention this letter when he told members of Congress last month that he had no knowledge of any frustration on the part of Mr. Mueller’s staff. In other words, after releasing a spin job on the Mueller report, he misled Congress on whether the special counsel was unhappy about it.

On this and other matters, Mr. Barr has cited personal conversations with Mr. Mueller to defend his actions. According to Mr. Barr, the special counsel was more unhappy with the media coverage of the attorney general’s memo than with the memo itself. Mr. Barr also insisted that Mr. Mueller said Justice Department policy on charging sitting presidents did not determine his decision on accusing Mr. Trump of a crime — even though that was a key consideration in the analysis Mr. Mueller included in his report.

It is long past time the public stopped hearing Mr. Barr’s views on how Mr. Mueller feels, and heard from the special counsel himself. The Justice Department should enable Mr. Mueller to speak publicly and under oath at the earliest opportunity. The special counsel should address not only his substantive findings on the president’s misbehavior but also the attorney general’s manipulation of his work. Not just Mr. Trump should be held accountable for his actions. So should his attorney general.

Attorney General William P. Barr told a House panel on Wednesday that he will not testify about special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report, raising the prospect that Democrats will hold the nation’s top law enforcement official in contempt of Congress.

Barr, who also missed a deadline for subpoenaed information on Wednesday, had been scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday about his handling of Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. But Barr balked at the committee’s plan to have a committee counsel question him alongside lawmakers, a snub that angered Democrats.

“When push comes to shove, the administration cannot dictate the terms of our hearing in our hearing room,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the committee, told reporters. He said the panel would meet as planned and added, “I hope and expect that the attorney general will think overnight and will be there as well.”