‘I will not be bullied’: Barr vows to protect Justice Dept. integrity, let Mueller finish probe

William P. Barr, President Trump’s nominee for attorney general, assured senators at his confirmation hearing on Tuesday that he will permit the special counsel, Robert Mueller, to complete the Russia investigation and said he was determined to resist any pressure from President Trump to use law enforcement for political purposes.

Barr, whose confirmation seems virtually assured, pointed to his age and background — he also served as attorney general from 1991 to 1993 — as buffers to potential intrusions on the Justice Department’s traditional independence. He suggested he had no further political aspirations that might cloud his judgment, the way that future ambitions might give pause to a younger nominee, as well as the experience to fight political interference.

“I am in a position in life where I can provide the leadership necessary to protect the independence and reputation of the department,” Barr,

Vowing “I will not be bullied,” President Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general asserted independence from the White House, saying he believed that Russia had tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

68, told the Senate Judiciary Committee, adding that he would not hesitate to resign if Trump pushed him to act improperly.

“I will not be bullied into doing anything I think is wrong — by anybody, whether it be editorial boards or Congress or the president,” Barr said. “I’m going to do what I think is right.”

He also pledged that he would refuse any order from Trump either to fire Mueller without good cause in violation of regulations or to rescind those rules first.

“It is in the best interest of everyone — the president, Congress and, most importantly, the American people — that this matter be resolved by allowing the special counsel to complete his work,” Barr said.

Barr’s first stint as attorney general came under President George Bush, who was known for his prudent and measured approach. If confirmed, Barr would serve under a president hardly known for self-restraint. Trump repeatedly excoriated former Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation, which Trump called a “witch hunt,” and pushed him to open criminal investigations into political adversaries like Hillary Clinton.

Over hours of testimony, Barr calmly displayed a fluent grasp of policy and smoothly responded to senators of both parties, demonstrating his long experience as a Washington hand and member of the Republican legal establishment. He is widely expected to be confirmed, both because Republicans control the Senate and because Democrats are deeply suspicious of Matthew G. Whitaker, the acting attorney general whom Trump installed after ousting Attorney General Jeff Sessions in November.

“Mr. Barr is qualified by any reasonable standard,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and the committee’s chairman, said after the hearing, adding that he saw no reason to doubt Barr would be confirmed. “And if he’s not qualified, I don’t know who they are ever going to pick.”

During his testimony, Barr described being asked whether he was interested in joining Trump’s defense team in June 2017 by a friend of the president’s. Although Barr agreed to meet with Trump — and told him, he said, that Mueller was both a personal friend and “a straight shooter who should be dealt with as such” — he declined to join his legal team.

“My wife and I were sort of looking forward to a bit of respite, and I didn’t want to stick my head into that meat grinder,” Barr said.

Barr’s testimony also touched on many other issues.

Regarding Trump’s demand for funding for a border wall, which has prompted the longest government shutdown in American history, Barr expressed qualified support for expanding barriers along the border with Mexico where they could be part of “common sense” immigration enforcement. But he sidestepped questions about whether Trump could lawfully redirect military funds to build a wall without congressional authorization, as the president has threatened to invoke emergency powers to do.

Under questioning about whether he had sought to push out the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, who is widely expected to leave if Barr is confirmed, the nominee said he had not — and, indeed, had asked Rosenstein to stay on longer for a transition period. And he assured senators form both parties that his views on the criminal justice system had evolved from the early 1990s, when he advocated stiffer sentences for drug offenders, and that he would fully carry out substantial sentencing and prison law changes passed last month.

But the hearing repeatedly returned to Russia’s attempts to manipulate the American election process and the open investigation by Mueller into Moscow’s campaign of subversion — and possible links to Trump and his associates.

Early in the hearing, Graham brought up the F.B.I.’s newly revealed counterintelligence investigation into whether the president was working with the Russians, asking incredulously whether Barr had “heard of such a thing in all the time you have been associated with the department.”

When Barr answered that he had not, Graham sought and obtained Barr’s assurance that he would look into who opened the investigation into the president at the F.B.I. or the Justice Department and to tell the committee whether it was appropriate.