Barr’s answers mislead; he must quit, senator says
In back-to-back congressional hearings on April 9 and 10, Attorney General William Barr disclaimed knowledge of the thinking of special counsel Robert Mueller and members of his team of prosecutors investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“No, I don’t,” Barr said, when asked by Rep. Charlie Crist, D-Fla., whether he knew what was behind reports that members of Mueller’s team were frustrated by the attorney general’s memo detailing their top-level conclusions.
“I don’t know,” he said the next day, when asked by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., whether Mueller supported his finding that there was not sufficient evidence to conclude that President Donald Trump had obstructed justice.
These statements resurfaced Tuesday after the revelation that Mueller had sent a letter to Barr two weeks earlier airing concerns that Barr’s memo “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the investigation.
Suggesting that Mueller’s letter — only portions of which have been made public — belied the sworn testimony of the attorney general, Van Hollen recirculated a clip of his backand-forth with Barr and declared, “He must resign.”
The Maryland Democrat said he believed Barr’s answer was “completely misleading because he was well aware of the fact that Bob Mueller had raised questions with the substance of the conclusions stated in the attorney general’s letter.” The Justice Department didn’t immediately return a request for comment on Van Hollen’s accusation.
In a phone conversation after Mueller’s March 27 letter, the special counsel expressed concern to Barr about public misunderstanding of the obstruction component of the investigation.
According to Justice Department officials, Mueller indicated in the conversation that he did not find fault with the accuracy of the memo but rather with conclusions drawn in media coverage.
Though he had not examined the entire letter, Van Hollen allowed, “Based on what I’ve seen, it’s clear to me that what Attorney General Barr told me is totally inconsistent with what he knew at the time.”
Van Hollen labeled Barr’s profession of ignorance about the special counsel’s position “the most recent example of the attorney general acting as the chief propagandist for the Trump administration instead of answering questions in a straightforward and objective manner.”
“You now have a pattern of misleading conduct from the attorney general,” Van Hollen added. “His bluntly misleading answer to my question is part of that.”
Still, the lawmaker stopped short of concluding that Barr had lied to him, saying he needed to review the full letter. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., who has authority over impeachment questions as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, also made a point Tuesday night of recalling the exchange between Barr and Van Hollen.
Beyond Capitol Hill, some of the president’s critics were quick to conclude that the attorney general should be removed, with some suggesting that he had committed perjury.
At least one presidential candidate, Julian Castro, a former housing secretary for President Barack Obama’s administration, said the attorney general should step down or face impeachment.
Legal experts, however, were skeptical, noting that the uncertainty surrounding the precise objections raised by the special counsel make it difficult to assess Barr’s candor. So, too, the ambiguity of the language employed by the attorney general, as well as by the lawmakers questioning him, would likely shield him from a perjury charge, said Jennifer Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Federal law makes it a criminal offense to speak falsely about a material matter while under oath, and to do so knowingly and willfully.
“He’s tiptoeing, dancing and threading the needle all at once around perjury, but I don’t think he ever actually steps into the land of perjury,” Levinson said. “We’re talking about a very skilled attorney who purposely used vague enough language.”