Lawrence: Boyz II Men play pivotal role in comedy ‘Long Shot’ Barr defends his summary
AG clashes with Democrats over Mueller report
WASHINGTON — Attorney General William Barr defended his handling of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report during a Senate hearing Wednesday and clashed with Democrats who accused the nation’s top law enforcement official of distorting conclusions of the investigation.
Barr engaged in a testy give-and-take with lawmakers who accused the attorney general of misrepresenting findings of the damaging special counsel report with a determination of no criminal wrongdoing despite documented misconduct by the president.
The attorney general
grew testy with implications that he also acted improperly, and defended his decision that there were no acts of criminal wrongdoing by President Donald Trump, who Barr said was wrongfully accused of colluding with the Russians to hack the presidential election.
“We have to stop using the criminal justice system as a political weapon,” Barr said.
Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-hawaii, chastised Barr, saying he had “lied to Congress” in his summary after the 448-page, redacted Mueller report was released.
“America deserves better,” Hirono said. “You should resign.”
Her questioning was cut off by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
“You’ve slandered this man from top to bottom,” a red-faced Graham snapped.
Mueller letter
Democrats on the Judiciary Committee seized on the release of a March 27 letter written by Mueller to Barr saying his “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.”
Democrats characterized the letter as a rebuke of Barr by Mueller.
Barr dismissed the tone of the letter as a “bit snitty and I think it was probably written by someone on his staff.”
The yearslong Mueller special investigation found Russian meddling in the 2016 election to help candidate Trump, with numerous contacts between the campaign and Russian intelligence officials that went unreported to U.S. intelligence agencies.
Mueller found no evidence the president colluded with the Russians, but left to Barr and Congress the decision to pursue prosecution of obstruction of justice.
In his first appearance on Capitol Hill since the release of the report, Barr calmly said he was surprised Mueller did not make a determination on whether the president committed a provable case of obstruction of justice, after conducting an investigation into those allegations.
Barr said he made the decision there was no provable case based on findings in the report. And he pointedly said he did not exonerate the president, only that he found no legal basis to prosecute the president.
Summary didn’t distort
Barr also said Mueller did not accuse the Justice Department of distorting the findings of the report, but was concerned about news media interpretation, and asked that more information from the report be publicly released.