William Barr’s senate hearing turns antagonistic; he will skip House appearance

Written by Peter Baker

Attorney General William Barr defended himself Wednesday against withering criticism of his handling of the special counsel investigation as Democrats accused him of deceiving Congress and acting as a personal agent for President Donald Trump rather than a steward of justice.

At a contentious hearing marked by a deep partisan divide, Barr denied misrepresenting the investigation’s conclusions despite a newly revealed letter by special counsel Robert Mueller protesting the initial summary of its findings. Barr dismissed the letter as “a bit snitty” and the controversy over it as “mind-bendingly bizarre.”

But in a series of aggressive interrogations, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee expressed indignation and asserted that the attorney general had been “purposely misleading,” engaged in “masterful hairsplitting” and even “lied to Congress.” Several Democrats on the committee, elsewhere in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail called for Barr’s resignation or even impeachment.

The conflict escalated afterward when Barr announced that he would not show up for a parallel hearing Thursday before the Democrat-controlled House Judiciary Committee. Barr objected to the format of questioning, which would have included questioning by staff lawyers, not just lawmakers. Democrats may now opt to subpoena him, setting up a possible showdown in court.

“He is terrified of having to face a skilled attorney,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, the committee’s chairman.

In just 11 weeks in office, Barr has become a lightning rod for criticism for minimizing the findings of Mueller’s report and publicly embracing the president’s explanations of his actions. Senate Democrats took the opportunity Wednesday to excoriate him before a national television audience.

“Mr. Barr, now the American people know that you are no different from Rudy Giuliani or Kellyanne Conway or any of the other people who sacrifice their once decent reputation for the grifter and liar who sits in the Oval Office,” Sen. Mazie K. Hirono, D-Hawaii, told him, likening the attorney general to the president’s personal lawyer and White House counselor.

“You put the power and authority of the office of the attorney general and the Department of Justice behind a public relations effort to help Donald Trump protect himself,” she added. “Finally, you lied to Congress.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and the committee chairman, scolded Hirono for being unfair. “You slandered this man from top to bottom,” he said.

The hearing was electric, one of those Washington moments when power, politics and passion meet before the klieg lights. At the center of the clash was nothing less than the presidency and the integrity of the law enforcement system, but the hours of back-and-forth reinforced the dueling realities defining the two parties.

Democrats skipped over the fact that Mueller accused Trump of no crime and instead focused on the evidence within his report that they still saw as proof of wrongdoing. Republicans dismissed the report’s damning elements and shifted attention to what Trump has called the actual scandal, the fact that he was investigated in the first place.

Picking up themes that have animated Trump’s public appearances and Twitter feed, Republicans accused President Barack Obama’s administration and former FBI officials of orchestrating a scheme “to overturn a democratic election,” as Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri put it. “And to my mind, that’s the real crisis here.”

Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said the president’s enemies have spread unfounded innuendo. “What we have heard is as baseless as any conspiracy theory that we have seen in politics, any that I can think of,” Lee said. “The only difference here is that the purveyors of this conspiracy were in many cases prominent members of the opposition party.”

Barr, 68, who is serving his second tour as attorney general, sat impassively through much of the day, his face rarely betraying emotion or energy. Amid bracing attacks on his integrity, he answered curtly and legalistically, only occasionally seeming offended.

He navigated his way through hostile questioning in part by quarreling over the meaning of words like “summary” and “suggest” and “fire.” But at several points, he made clear that he agreed with Trump’s view of the investigation, its origin and the current debate over Mueller’s findings.

“How did we get to the point here where the evidence is now that the president was falsely accused of colluding with the Russians and accused of being treasonous and accused of being a Russian agent and the evidence now is that was without a basis?” Barr asked.

“And two years of his administration have been dominated by the allegations that have now been proven false,” he continued. “And, you know, to listen to some of the rhetoric, you would think that the Mueller report had found the opposite.”

By the end of the day, Barr refused to do it all over again Thursday, even though he had been summoned to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. The committee’s Democratic majority voted Wednesday to allow staff lawyers from both parties to question Barr in addition to members. Barr and Republicans objected to that format, saying that the committee members could adequately ask questions.

Nadler accused Barr of “trying to blackmail the committee” over its format as part of the administration’s “complete stonewalling” of Congress. “We cannot permit the administration to dictate to Congress how we operate,” he told reporters.

Barr’s appearance before the Republican-controlled Senate committee was inflamed by reports about Mueller’s extraordinary letter objecting to the attorney general’s four-page summary of the special counsel’s conclusions sent to Congress on March 24.

In the letter, dated March 27 and released Wednesday, Mueller said Barr’s summary had failed to capture “the context, nature and substance” of the report and left the public confused about “critical aspects of the results.”

Barr told the committee Wednesday that he called Mueller when he read the letter the next day, but that the special counsel did not take issue with the attorney general’s letter itself, only how it was being interpreted.

“He was very clear with me that he was not suggesting that we had misrepresented his report,” Barr said. Mueller, he said, told him that “the press reporting had been inaccurate and that the press was reading too much into it.” He said he resisted releasing summaries as requested by Mueller because he did not want to put out the report piecemeal, adding that the matter was moot since he eventually did release a redacted version of the full report.

“At that point, it was my baby,” he said.

But Mueller’s letter made no mention of media accounts and attributed his concern to Barr’s letter. Moreover, Democrats seized Wednesday on Barr’s testimony before a House committee on April 9 when he seemed to suggest he was not aware of concerns about his letter.

During that hearing, Rep. Charlie Crist, D-Fla., cited articles in The New York Times and elsewhere reporting that some members of Mueller’s team were frustrated that Barr’s letter did not adequately describe their conclusions.

“Do you know what they’re referencing with that?” Crist asked.

“No, I don’t,” Barr replied. “I suspect that they probably wanted more put out, but in my view, I was not interested in putting out summaries or trying to summarize.”

On Wednesday, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., grilled Barr about that exchange. “Why did you say you were not aware of concerns when weeks before your testimony, Mr. Mueller had expressed concerns to you?” he asked.

“The question was relating to unidentified members who were expressing frustration over the accuracy relating to findings,” Barr said. “I talked directly to Bob Mueller, not members of his team,” and “Mueller had never told me that the expression of the findings was inaccurate.”

Leahy also took on Barr over his assertions that Trump had “fully cooperated” with the investigation, asking him about several of the president’s actions to thwart the inquiry, including his refusal to be personally interviewed by prosecutors.

Leahy cited an instance when Trump directed Corey Lewandowski, his former campaign manager, to tell Jeff Sessions, who was then the attorney general and had recused himself from the investigation, to unrecuse himself and impose limits on the special counsel that would effectively take its focus off the president.

“Is that fully cooperating?” Leahy asked.

“Well,” Barr said, pausing, “I don’t see any conflict between that and fully cooperating with the investigation.”

The attorney general also said Trump’s instructions to Donald F. McGahn II, then the White House counsel, in the summer of 2017 to remove Mueller on the grounds of supposed conflicts did not constitute an illegal effort to impede the investigation.

“There is a distinction between saying to someone, ‘Go fire him, go fire Mueller,’ and saying, ‘Have him removed based on conflict,’” Barr said.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, asked what the difference would be.

“The difference between them is if you remove someone for a conflict of interest,” Barr said, “then there would be presumably another person appointed” as special counsel.