AG nominee vows to let Mueller finish job
At hearing, Barr says he won’t be ‘bullied’ — even by president
WASHINGTON — William Barr, President Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, assured senators at his confirmation hearing Tuesday that he will permit the special counsel, Robert Mueller, to complete the Russia investigation and said he is determined to resist any pressure from 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, 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.
Barr’s first stint as attorney general came under President George H.W. Bush, who was known for his measured approach. If confirmed, Barr would serve under a president hardly known for his 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 his 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 Sessions in November.
Asked by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., why as a “rational person” he would want the job after seeing Trump’s “unrelenting criticism” of Sessions, Barr portrayed himself as an institutionalist.
“Because I love the department and all its components, including the FBI,” Barr said. “I think they are critical institutions that are essential to preserving the rule of law, which is the heartbeat of this country.”
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 histor, he expressed qualified support for expanding barriers along the Mexican border 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.
Early in the hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the committee’s new chairman, brought up the FBI’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 his assurance that he would look into who opened the investigation.
Later, Barr also defended as “entirely proper” his decision to write an unsolicited, lengthy memo to the Trump administration legal team in June arguing that laws against obstruction of justice cannot criminalize a president’s use of his constitutional powers — like when Trump fired James Comey as FBI director.