Tag: William Barr

Dems go after Barr’s head

Democrats outraged over Attorney General William Barr’s handling of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report are increasing their fire, threatening to hold him in contempt and even suggesting they could seek his impeachment.

The cries for Barr’s head exploded on Thursday after the attorney general skipped a House hearing one day after his testimony before a Senate panel shed new light on his differences with Mueller, the ex-FBI chief who led a two-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Democrats left an empty chair for Barr as they opened a hearing that would go nowhere. Afterward, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) led her press conference by accusing Barr of committing a crime.

View the complete May 2 article by Mike Lillis and Cristina Marco on The Hill website here.

Legal expert Benjamin Wittes tears Attorney General Barr’s aggressive defense of Trump to pieces: ‘It has been catastrophic’

On April 1, legal/national security expert Benjamin Wittes (editor and co-founder of the blog Lawfare) weighed in on Attorney General William Barr’s response to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report for the Russia investigation and asserted, “For the next two weeks, let’s give Attorney General William Barr the benefit of the doubt.” But that was before Barr’s May 1 testimony on Mueller’s report in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And Wittes, in a May 2 piece for the Atlantic, tears Barr’s testimony to pieces.

The 49-year-old Wittes says of Barr’s performance as attorney general, “It has been catastrophic. Not in my memory has a sitting attorney general more diminished the credibility of his department on any subject. It is a kind of trope of political opposition in every administration that the attorney general—whoever he or she is—is politicizing the Justice Department and acting as a defense lawyer for the president. In this case, it is true.”

Wittes isn’t terribly critical of Barr’s redactions to Mueller’s report, describing them as “not unreasonable, though they were aggressive in some specific areas. To whatever extent he went overboard, Congress has a far-less-redacted version.”

View the complete May 2 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

White House complained about Mueller report to Barr

White House lawyer Emmet Flood sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr in April complaining that special counsel Robert Mueller‘s report made “political” statements, according to multiple reports.

The letter was sent one day after Mueller’s redacted report was released to the public.

In it, Flood described the Mueller report as suffering from “an extraordinary legal defect” and rebuked the special counsel for explicitly stating that his investigation did not “exonerate” President Trump on allegations of obstruction of justice.

View the complete May 2 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Pelosi accuses Barr of committing a crime by lying to Congress

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters during a press conference Thursday that Attorney General Bill Barr did not tell the truth during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee — and “that’s a crime.

“What is deadly serious about it is the attorney general of the United States of America was not telling the truth to the Congress of the United States. That’s a crime. … He lied to Congress. And if anybody else did that, it would be considered a crime. Nobody is above the law. Not the president of the United States, and not the attorney general.”

View the complete May 2 article by Zachary Basu on the Axios website here.

Democrats blast Barr for missing hearing

House Democrats blasted Attorney General William Barr for refusing to appear at their hearing on Thursday — a day after much of the nation was transfixed on his testimony to the Senate on his handling of special counsel Robert Mueller‘s report.

Barr skipped the House Judiciary Committee hearing because he objected to Democratic demands that their staff counsel be able to question him.

Democrats went forward with the theater of the hearing anyway, setting up an empty chair for the absent attorney general. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) brought a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken to the morning event, and accused Barr of being a coward after it ended.

View the complete May 2 article by Morgan Chalfant and Olivia Beavers on The Hill website here.

Fox News hosts expose the dishonesty of AG Barr and the network’s own ‘opinion people’

The highly anticipated Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing with Attorney General William Barr provided all the sparks and melodrama that was advertised. While the Republican members of the committee wasted their time flattering Barr and calling for ridiculously unwarranted investigations of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the Democrats effectively revealed just how devoutly wedded to Donald Trump the Attorney General is.

Barr was unashamedly protecting Trump from any potentially negative perceptions he might have earned due to his flagrantly unlawful activity and obstruction of justice. Barr refused to concede some obvious failures on his part to be an objective servant of the American people, rather than a personal criminal lawyer for Trump.

Even so, Barr couldn’t remember whether or not Trump ever asked him to open an investigation into Trump’s political opponents or critics. He admitted that he didn’t review the evidence in the Mueller report before deciding that Trump was innocent. He denied that directing someone to change their testimony (as Trump did to White House Counsel Don McGahn) was witness tampering and obstruction of justice. He defended his use of the loaded, Trumpian term of “spying” during his previous congressional testimony. He couldn’t even say whether the President’s actions were consistent with his oath of office. So Barr is not just another Trump lawyer, he’s as bad at it as the rest of Trump’s legal team.

View the complete May 2 article by News Corpse from the Daily Kos website on the AlterNet website here.

Fox News Judge Napolitano: Barr Misled Congress On Mueller Concerns

Fox News judicial analyst Judge Napolitano on Wednesday accused Attorney General Bill Barr of misleading the House of Representatives when he claimed to be unaware of special counsel Robert Mueller’s concerns with his four-page summary of the Russia investigation — after having received a letter from Mueller explicitly stating those concerns.

Barr was asked about his testimony before the House on Wednesday by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who demanded to know why the attorney general said he was unaware of concerns from special counsel Mueller’s team despite having spoken with Mueller about his concerns.

“I answered a question,” Barr told Leahy. “And the question was related to unidentified members who were expressing frustration over the accuracy relating to findings. I don’t know what that refers to at all. I talked directly to Bob Mueller, not members of his team.”

View the complete May 1 article by Elizabeth Preza on the National Memo website here.

At Hearing, Ted Cruz Accidentally Blows Up GOP Conspiracy Theories

While Democrats grilled Attorney General Bill Barr on Wednesday over his mishandling of the end of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee used their time at the hearing to stoke the flames of conspiracy theories about the investigation into President Donald Trump and his campaign.

Essentially, the GOP and right-wing media have been arguing for years that the Russia probe was built on a flimsy basis that was really just a pretextual excuse to inappropriately surveil (or spy on!) the Trump campaign. This would seem to be completely belied by the Mueller report, which shows that there were many credible bases for investigating crimes, including extensive contacts between people connected to the Russian government and the Trump campaign. And while all that was going on, the Kremlin was, in fact, conducting a wide-ranging criminal effort to interfere in the 2016 election, efforts the Trump campaign knew about and welcomed.

In a back-and-forth between Sen. Ted Cruz and Barr on Wednesday, though, the Texas Republican accidentally elicited information that also completely undermines from another angle the theory that President Barack Obama’s Justice Department and FBI were somehow engaged in an effort to target the Trump campaign.

View the complete May 1 article by Cody Fenwick on the National Memo website here.

Barr puts Trump’s actions in best light, despite ‘substantial evidence’ of obstruction cited by Mueller

It was one of the most dramatic cases of potential obstruction of justice laid out by federal investigators: President Trump directing the top White House lawyer to seek the removal of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III — and then later pushing him to deny the episode.

But Attorney General William P. Barr on Wednesday played down evidence that Trump sought to fire the head of the investigation bearing down on him, emphasizing in testimony before a Senate committee that the president may have had valid reasons for his actions.

It was a surprise recasting of the account of then-White House counsel Donald McGahn, who told investigators that Trump called him twice in June 2017 at home, pressuring him to intervene with the Justice Department to try to get Mueller removed. McGahn told federal investigators that he planned to resign rather than comply. And he said he later refused a demand by Trump that he write a letter denying news accounts of the episode.

View the complete May 1 article by Carol D. Leonnig on The Washington Post here.

Is an Attorney General Independent or Political? Barr Rekindles a Debate

WASHINGTON — Attorney General William P. Barr said during his confirmation hearing in January that serving in his future post was “not the same” as representing President Trump and pledged to make law enforcement decisions based only on facts and the law — not politics.

But his handling of the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has called that vow into question. On Wednesday, Mr. Barr defended his actions before the Senate Judiciary Committee, even as he put forward an interpretation of the evidence in a favorable light for Mr. Trump.

Mr. Barr’s dueling performances underscored tensions inherent in the role of the attorney general, pitting the ideal that the nation’s top law enforcement official should be independent of politics and enforce a neutral understanding of the rule of law against the reality that he or she is politically appointed and part of any administration’s team.

View the complete May 1 article by Charlie Savage on The New York Times website here.