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The news conference was a last-minute addition for Washington, a city that has been preparing for the final report for almost two years now.

Mueller, who authored the report, was not on hand to take questions and is not expected to comment on the report, his spokesman Peter Carr told ABC News.

In an unusual turn of events, Trump first announced the news conference in a radio interview Wednesday afternoon, one day ahead of the scheduled release of the special counsel's report.

“Attorney General Barr will be giving a press conference, maybe I’ll do one after that, we’ll see,” the president said during a radio interview on WMAL's “The Larry O’Connor Show.” The Justice Department soon confirmed that a press conference would be held at 9:30 a.m. the following morning.

The Justice Department denied that the president or the White House requested the press conference. “It was our decision, and it was our idea,” said a Justice Department spokesperson.

\"PHOTO:
Win Mcnamee/Getty Images
PHOTO: U.S. Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein arrive to speak about the release of the redacted version of the Mueller report at the Department of Justice, April 18, 2019 in Washington, D.C.
>

Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Barr's handing of the report release has created a \"crisis of confidence in his independence and impartiality.\" In order to restore trust, they said, Mueller must testify before Congress.

\"We believe the only way to begin restoring public trust in the handling of the Special Counsel’s investigation is for Special Counsel Mueller himself to provide public testimony in the House and Senate as soon as possible. The American people deserve to hear the truth,” they said.

In a press conference Wednesday night after hearing about the press conference, Nadler accused Barr of “waging a media campaign” on Trump’s behalf.

“Attorney General Barr is not allowing the facts of the Mueller report to speak for themselves, but is trying to bake in the narrative about the report to the benefit of the White House,” said Nadler, a Democrat from New York.

Top House Democratic chairs, including Nadler, also called for Barr to cancel the press conference entirely, calling it \"unnecessary and inappropriate\" in a joint statement.

Soon after the report was delivered to Barr on March 22, the attorney general released a four-page summary of the report that laid out the “principal conclusions” of the investigation. It was immediately dismissed by Democrats on Capitol Hill as a report that “raises as many questions as it answers.”

Adding to the list of what to watch for, on Wednesday, the president said that he might also hold his own press conference, though the White House did not provide details on what style or when that event might happen ahead of the president's departure to Mar-a-Lago for the holiday weekend.

The White House also said it may release a “counter-report” at about “34 or 35” pages, according to the president’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

ABC News' John Santucci contributed to this report.

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