FORGET BARR, BRING US THE MUELLER TESTIMONY

It was heartening to see Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, put Attorney General William Barr on the spot Wednesday as he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Harris, a formidable former prosecutor and California attorney general, asked Barr, “Has the president or anyone at the White House either asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone?”

It seems like a straight-forward yes or no question, right? But Barr rolled his eyes up into his head and said, “Umm.” Moments ticked by. He repeated himself. “Umm.”

“Yes or no,” Harris nudged.

“Umm. Would you repeat that question?”

She did.

“Umm. The president or anybody else —,” Barr paused, pretending to be thinking hard.

“It seems you’d remember something like that and be able to tell us,” Harris filled the silence.

“Yeah, but I’m trying to grapple with the word ‘suggest.’ There have been discussions of matters out there, that they’ve not asked me to open investigations but umm.”

“Perhaps they suggested?”

“Suggest,” he said, playing cat-and-mouse, rolling that word around again.

“Hinted?” Harris asked.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged.

“Inferred?”

He shrugged.

“You don’t know,” Harris said finally, her disdain barely contained before she moved on to ask Barr if he reviewed the underlying evidence of the Mueller Report before making his own decision to clear President Trump of obstruction charges in the probe of Russian interference in our 2016 election. This despite the fact that Mueller’s report clearly states the evidence does not exonerate the president. Barr said he did not look at that evidence.

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent wrote that Barr “made little serious effort to disguise the degree to which he is operating above all as an advocate for the president. Throughout [the hearing], there was a kind of casual disdain and contempt not just for the congressional proceedings but also for the very notion that any of his conduct thus far raises any legitimate concerns — let alone that he should have to waste his time addressing them.”

Harris on Thursday told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota, “He did not answer the question, and I’m sure he didn’t because he knew he was under oath, and he knew that he could potentially expose himself to perjury if he didn’t answer honestly.”

As for the ever-crafty Barr, he declined Thursday to show up and testify as requested before the House Judiciary Committee.

For now — at least until we the people hear from special counsel Robert Mueller — it may be former FBI chief Jim Comey, whom president Donald Trump fired “over the Russia thing,” who puts Barr’s toady behavior best by tossing it right back into the president’s lap.

“People have been asking me hard questions. What happened to the leaders in the Trump administration, especially the attorney general, Bill Barr, who I have said was due the benefit of the doubt?” Comey wrote in a Wednesday op-ed for The New York Times.

How can Barr, a smart and accomplished attorney, echo the president’s words, like “no collusion” and F.B.I. “spying”? How can he dismiss obstruction of justice as presidential frustration? How can he belittle special counsel Robert Mueller — and the rule of law, while he’s at it?

Comey’s thoughtful answer is this: “Mr. Trump eats your soul in small bites.”

It starts with your sitting silent while he lies, making you complicit. It moves along with Trump’s grandiose assertions washing over you unchallenged, and builds with his unending alternative reality that he wraps like a web around all in the room. It grinds on with him attacking institutions and values you hold dear, while you still remain silent. “Because, after all, what are you supposed to say? He’s the president of the United States.”

Finally, Comey says, you tell yourself you are too important for this nation to lose, so you’ll “play the long game for your country. Of course, to stay, you must be seen as on his team, so you use his language, praise his leadership, tout his commitment to values.

“And then you are lost. He has eaten your soul.”

Well, we must believe he hasn’t eaten Robert Mueller’s soul. If he had, it would seem the president and all of his men wouldn’t have to work so hard to keep Congress and the public from seeing all of Mueller’s work and hearing it portrayed truthfully.

We already know that Mueller, a stickler for rules, was so distressed by Barr’s mischaracterizations of the report that on March 27 he put in writing a letter of complaint to Barr to register his disgust. Mueller wrote: “The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office’s work and conclusions.”

Barr on Wednesday described the letter as “snitty.” He was dismissive of it and of Mueller.

Frankly, it doesn’t matter that Barr stood us a House committee on Thursday. We’ve heard all we need to hear from the president’s new fixer. If he had nothing to hide, he’d not have been afraid to sit in the empty chair across from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler and answer more questions.

We need now to hear from Mueller. And the sooner, the better.