Sen. Mazie Hirono criticizes AG Barr during his testimony, saying he is 'no different' than 'any other people who sacrificed their once-decent reputation for the grifter and liar who sits in the Oval Office.” 'You should resign.'
Attorney General William Barr faced a grilling from lawmakers on Wednesday over his controversial handling of special counsel Robert Mueller's report as the nation's top law enforcement officer returned to Capitol Hill for the first time since releasing the probe's highly anticipated findings earlier this month.
In his report, Mueller did suggest that Congress, as an equal branch of government, has the authority to take the information uprooted by Mueller and either craft laws to prevent future presidents from conducting behavior described in the report, or, as “a drastic and rarely invoked remedy,” pursue impeachment.Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.
Sen. Mazie Hirono to Attorney General William Barr:"Now the American people know that you are no different from Rudy Giuliani or Kellyanne Conway or any of the other people who sacrificed their once decent reputation" https://t.co/UyviQ1DWt6 pic.twitter.com/XZ2sbz9MesWhen Barr asked for Hirono to clarify a question, the senator interrupted him, saying, “Please, Mr. Attorney general. Give us some credit for knowing what the hell is going on around here.
"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," Barr said,"and the evidence is now that was without a basis, and two years of his administration have been dominated by the allegations that have now been proven false?"
In a telling microcosm of Barr’s attitude about the special counsel’s report and President Trump’s conduct, Barr said: “I'm not in the business of determining when lies are told to the American people. I'm in the business of determining whether a crime has be committed.” Klobuchar raised the president’s praise of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for “refusing to break,” as Klobuchar said.
Democrats have accused Barr of"[shaping] the public's perception of the report," Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight Committee, by penning a four-page letter describing the report’s “principal conclusions” within 48 hours of receiving the special counsel’s findings.Senators have returned to their seats in the committee room after an hour-long break.
During his questioning, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., invoked comments Barr made to Rep. Charlie Crist, D-Fla., during a hearing before the House Appropriations Committee, in which Barr said he did not know whether members of the special counsel’s office were “frustrated,” but he “[suspected] that they probably wanted more put out.”
“It's a call for the president to make,” Barr said. “I assume he'd be testifying about privileged matters.”Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy questioned Barr on what he's testified about whether he knew about concerns raised by Mueller and his team. "I think that if he felt that he shouldn't go down the path of making a traditional prosecutive decision, then he shouldn't have investigated," Barr said.
Barr:"We felt at that episode, the government would not be able to establish obstruction" https://t.co/ZSrldyPiUz pic.twitter.com/WCjPBXoNdp "He wanted, he argued for putting out summaries of each volume. The executive summaries that had been written by his office. And if not that, then other material that focused on the issue of why he didn't reach the obstruction question. But he was very clear with me that he was not suggesting that we had misrepresented his report," Barr said.
Barr says he called Mueller after the special counsel's March 27 letter, expressing frustration over Barr's characterization of the Mueller report:"He said that his concern focused on his explanation on why he did not reach a conclusion on obstruction" https://t.co/ZSrldyPiUz pic.twitter.com/ggXqqzcb25
Graham spoke glowingly of special counsel Robert Mueller Mueller, praising him as “the right guy to do this job.” In a letter dated March 27, Mueller complained that Barr's interpretation"did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office's work and conclusions." A Justice Department spokeswoman said in a follow-up phone call, Mueller"emphasized that nothing in the Attorney General's March 24 letter was inaccurate or misleading."
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