Barr defends federal response
Attorney General William Barr defended the aggressive federal law enforcement response to civil unrest in America, saying on Tuesday “violent rioters and anarchists have hijacked legitimate protests” sparked by George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police.
Barr told members of the House Judiciary Committee at a much-anticipated election year hearing the violence taking place in Portland, Ore., and other cities is disconnected from Floyd’s killing, which he called a “horrible” event that prompted the necessary national reckoning on the relationship between the Black community and law enforcement.
“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 of the Portland protests.
The hearing marks Barr’s first appearance before the House Judiciary Committee after 18 months in office, bringing him face to face with the panel that voted last year to hold him in contempt and is holding hearings on what Democrats say is politicization of the Justice Department under his watch. It came during the tumultuous stretch in which Barr has taken actions cheered by President Donald Trump but condemned by Democrats and other critics.
Among those actions is the Justice Department’s decision to drop the prosecution of former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn and Barr’s urging for a more lenient sentence for Trump ally Roger Stone, the move that prompted the trial team’s departure. Trump later commuted the sentence.
Opening the hearing, committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said the Trump administration had “twisted the Department of Justice into a shadow of its former self,” serving the powerful before average Americans.
Nadler said Barr had “aided and abetted” Trump’s worst impulses and excoriated him and the Justice Department for what he said was turning a blind eye to necessary reforms to police departments, for dismissing Black Lives Matter protests and for flooding streets with federal agents to stop protesters.