Attorney General William Barr said he and top officials at the Justice Department had an “inkling” of what the special counsel’s report would contain because they had been meeting with Robert Mueller’s investigators.

“The thinking of the special counsel was not a mystery to the people at the Department of Justice prior to his submission of the report,” Barr told a House Appropriation subcommittee on Tuesday. “There was some inkling as to some of the thinking of the special counsel.”

The attorney general was responding to a question about why he was able to release a four-page summary of Mueller’s report just two days after receiving it.

Barr said deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw the probe, and Justice Department lawyers had interacted with Mueller and his investigators.

He also said he and Rosenstein met with Mueller and his team on March 5 to discuss the report.

In a matter of weeks – March 22 – Mueller turned in his report to the Justice Department and Barr, Rosenstein and other staffers examined it over the weekend before issuing the four-page synopsis.