Tag: Attorney General Barr

Dems hammer Barr over Mueller in four-hour grilling

Senate Democrats were fully unleashed in their grilling of Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday, accusing the top Department of Justice official of bungling the release of the Mueller report in an attempt to defend President Trump.

During the four-hour hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democrats seized on the explosive revelation that special counsel Robert Mueller had criticized Barr’s summary of his report in writing. Some suggested he was no longer fit to serve as attorney general.

“I think history will judge you harshly, and maybe a bit unfairly,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told Barr.

View the complete May 1 article by Jacqueline Thomsen and Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

Barr defends handling of Mueller report

Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday defended his handling of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report at a tense Senate hearing, explaining in detail his contacts with Mueller, who had objected to his description of the report’s findings on obstruction.

In sworn testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Barr said he wanted to release the report’s bottom-line conclusions as quickly as possible because the public was in a “high state of agitation” over the results of Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference and potential coordination between President Trump’s campaign and Moscow.

“Former government officials were confidently predicting that the president or members of his family would be indicted,” Barr told senators in his opening remarks.

View the complete May 1 article by Morgan Chalfant and Jacqueline Thomsen on The Hill website here.

After Disclosure Of Mueller Letter, Demands For Barr Resignation Mount

Attorney General Bill Barr frustrated Special Counsel Robert Mueller with his misleading portrayal of the Russia investigation’s final report in March, the Washington Post revealed Tuesday and the Justice Department confirmed. Mueller wrote a letter to Barr saying that his summary of the report he sent to Congress “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office’s work and conclusions,” the Post reported.

Many reporters and observers had argued from the beginning that Barr’s letter was likely purposely deceitful. Now that it’s been revealed that the notoriously taciturn Mueller objected to the attorney general’s portrayal, Barr is facing increasing calls for his resignation.

“Attorney General Barr willfully misled the American people to cover up attempted crimes by Donald Trump. He should resign his position or face an impeachment inquiry immediately,” said Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro.

View the complete April 30 article by Cody Fenwick with AlterNet on the National Memo website here.

Mueller expressed ‘frustration’ to Barr over lack of context in letter

A Justice Department spokeswoman said Tuesday that special counsel Robert Mueller expressed “frustration” to Attorney General William Barr in late March over the lack of context in the attorney general’s four-page memo describing his investigation’s findings.

Mueller “expressed frustration over the lack of context and the resulting media coverage” of his obstruction inquiry in a phone call following the release of Barr’s four-page letter, Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in a statement to The Hill.

Kupec said Barr called Mueller after receiving a letter in which, according to The Washington Post, the special counsel wrote that Barr’s March 24 memo did not “capture the context, nature, and substance” of his findings.

View the complete April 30 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

How a legal dispute between Mueller and Barr drove the end of the special counsel’s probe

For nearly two years, the public, Congress and the White House waited to learn if special counsel Robert S. Mueller III would find that President Trump had committed crimes. When the answer was finally revealed, it turned out Mueller didn’t think that was his job at all.

The special counsel ended his investigation last month, pointedly choosing not to reach a conclusion about whether the president had obstructed justice.

In a report of its findings, Mueller’s team said that choice was driven in large part by a long-standing legal opinion at the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that a sitting president should not be indicted, even if the charges remained sealed.

View the complete April 20 article by Devlin Barrett and Matt Zapotosky on The Washington Post website here.

Democrats renew attacks on Trump attorney general

Democrats ripped into Attorney General William Barr on Friday, signaling he’ll be a focal point of their attacks on the Trump administration in the post-Mueller report world.

The Democrats say Barr bungled the handling of special counsel Robert Mueller‘s report and that he has repeatedly sought to protect President Trump, contrasting his comments about what the report said with the actual text that was released on Thursday.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) issued a subpoena on Friday to win the release of the full report, while other Democrats have called for Barr’s resignation.

View the complete April 20 article by Olivia Beavers on The Hill website here.

Here’s what Watergate experts thought of Barr’s ‘political defense’ of Trump

“He was a shill for the president,” one Watergate expert said.

Attorney General William Barr launched a strident political defense of the president Thursday shortly before releasing special counsel Robert Mueller’s long-awaited report.

“In assessing the president’s actions discussed in the report, it is important to bear in mind the context. President [Donald] Trump faced an unprecedented situation,”  Barr told reporters in a press conference. “As he entered into office, and sought to perform his responsibilities as president, federal agents and prosecutors were scrutinizing his conduct before and after taking office, and the conduct of some of his associates.”

Barr reiterated two key points from his March 24 letter to Congress: Mueller did not conclude there was criminal collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, and the evidence does not show that Trump obstructed justice.

View the complete April 18 article by Joshua Eaton on the ThinkProgress website here.

Fox News Judge: Barr’s Four-Page Memo Didn’t ‘Exonerate’ Trump

When Attorney General William Barr released his four-page assessment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 400-page report, I was disappointed at many of my colleagues who immediately jumped on board the “no collusion” and “no obstruction” and “presidential exoneration” bandwagons.

As I write, Barr and his team are scrutinizing the Mueller report for legally required redactions. These include grand jury testimony about people not indicted — referred to by lawyers as 6(e) materials — as well as evidence that is classified, pertains to ongoing investigations or the revelation of which might harm national security.

Mueller impaneled two grand juries, one in Washington, D.C., and the other in Arlington, Virginia. Together they indicted 37 people and entities for violating a variety of federal crimes. Most of those indicted are Russian agents in Russia who have been charged with computer hacking and related crimes in an effort to affect the 2016 presidential election. They will never be tried.

View the complete April 13 article by Andrew Napolitano on the National Memo website here.

Dems say attorney general undermined credibility with Trump talking point

Democrats on Thursday accused Attorney General William Barr of playing into President Trump’s attacks on the FBI after he testified the day before that he is reviewing whether U.S. officials were improperly “spying” on the 2016 campaign.

They warned that Barr is undermining his credibility by using language that echoes Trump and his allies.

“When someone is given real information that Russia interfered with our elections, of course they’re supposed to look into it, that’s part of their job,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said from the Senate floor on Thursday.

View the complete April 11 article by Cristina Marcos on The Hill website here.

Barr says Mueller report will be released ‘within a week’

Attorney General William Barr told lawmakers on Tuesday that he will release a public version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report “within a week.”

Barr also said that the redactions made to the report would be color-coded and footnoted so that the public knows why the Justice Department decided to redact those portions.

“The process is going along very well,” Barr said during testimony before a House Appropriations subcommittee on the Justice Department’s fiscal 2020 budget request. “My original timetable of being able to release this by mid-April stands.”

View the complete April 9 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.