Barr goes on the defense
AG says protests not related to Floyd’s death
Attorney General William Barr offered a stout defense before a House committee Tuesday of the deployment of federal officers to Portland, Oregon, where he referred to “a mob” of hundreds of protesters who have hijacked legitimate demonstrations against police brutality.
“Largely absent from these scenes of destruction are even superficial attempts by the rioters to connect their actions to George Floyd’s death or any legitimate call for reform,” the attorney general said in a statement.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., seized on Barr’s defense, saying that the government action to deploy at least 114 officers to the city has “projected fear and violence.”
WASHINGTON – Attorney General William Barr cast the nightly protests in Portland, Oregon, where government officers and the federal courthouse have now become primary targets for demonstrators, as “an assault on the government of the United States.”
With tensions flaring in cities across the country, Barr offered an unmitigated defense before a House committee Tuesday for the deployment of federal officers to Portland, where he referred to “a mob” of hundreds of protesters who have hijacked legitimate demonstrations of police brutality following the May 25 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.
“Largely absent from these scenes of destruction are even superficial attempts by the rioters to connect their actions to George Floyd’s death or any legitimate call for reform,” Barr said in a statement. “Nor could such brazen acts of lawlessness plausibly be justified by a concern that police officers in Minnesota or elsewhere defied the law.
“It is, by any objective measure, an assault on the Government of the United States,” he wrote.
Barr’s long-sought testimony – his first before the House Judiciary Committee – came as part of House Democrats’ investigation into allegations of political interference at the Justice Department and claims that the attorney general has turned it into a political ansaying nex of the Trump White House.
Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., seized on Barr’s defense of the Portland response, saying that the government action to deploy at least 114 officers has “projected fear and violence.”
Asked if Barr had discussed the deployment of federal officers with President Donald Trump as part of a reelection campaign strategy, Barr said he would not discuss conversations with the president.
“Shame on you, Mr. Barr,” Nadler said.
“The message these actions send is clear: In this Justice Department, the President’s enemies will be punished, and his friends will be protected, no matter the cost,” Nadler said.
Democrats pressed Barr on the deployment of federal agents to Portland, doing so only fueled the violence in what had been largely peaceful protests.
“We are on the defense,” Barr said of the federal response in Portland. “We’re not out looking for trouble.”
Barr also rejected allegations that he’s targeting Trump’s enemies: “What enemies have I indicted?”
Barr defended his actions as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, asserting that he has acted apart from the interests of the White House while “applying a standard of justice without partisan considerations.”
Even before taking office in 2019, Barr said he became “deeply troubled by what I perceived as the increasing use of the criminal justice process as a political weapon and the emergence of two separate standards of justice.”