AG Barr defends handling 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.

The attorney general said he rushed to release a quick summary immediately after the Mueller report was given to the Justice Department.

“The body politic was in a high state of agitation,” Barr said.

But Mueller’s letter complained about the conclusions in a subsequent summary by Barr that was released with the redacted special counsel report.

Mueller wrote that because of the Justice Department’s summation, the public is confused about “critical aspects of the results.”

Barr said he had offered Mueller the opportunity to review the letter before it was sent, and he declined.

Following conversations, Barr said Mueller “was clear we had not misrepresented his report.” Barr said Mueller was concerned about news media interpretation.

Democrats on the Senate panel have asked the Justice Department Inspector General to investigate Barr’s handling of the report and his summation to Congress.

The Mueller letter became the focus of the hearing, overshadowing some of the more damaging details of the report and evidence of misconduct by the president, who actively sought to interfere and obstruct the investigation.

No crime to ask staffer to lie

Barr was quizzed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the panel, about Trump’s order to former White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller. When he did not, Trump ordered McGahn to write a press release to say the president never ordered the firing.

Barr sought to draw a legal distinction between firing, and “having someone removed.” It was reasoning that drew more questions from Democrats. Barr also said it was not a crime for the president to ask a staff member to lie for him.

The report also found that Trump offered future pardons to witnesses to keep those talking to Mueller “on message.”

“This committee needs to hear directly from special counsel Mueller,” Feinstein said.

Mueller found 10 instances where Trump tried to interfere or stop the investigation, yet he left the decision up to Congress whether to pursue further investigation and prosecution.

Barr said despite the findings, he determined that there was no evidence of criminality to support a charge of obstruction of justice.

Defending the president

Republicans, meanwhile, defended the president and Barr.

“The president never did anything to keep Mueller from doing his job,” Graham said.

Graham underscored that no charges were brought against the president after $25 million was spent on the investigation where 500 search warrants were issued and 500 witnesses were interviewed.

The White House submitted 1.4 million documents to the special counsel, and made 20 staffers available for questioning.

“So what did we find out?” Graham asked. “There was no collusion.”

Graham suggested the Justice Department continue an investigation into the FBI probe of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her use of private email servers, and alleged attempts to erase and destroy emails on those servers.

Republicans also want answers to the issuance of special warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on a U.S. citizen who worked for the Trump campaign and exonerated of any wrongdoing.

“We’re going to look,” Graham threatened.

Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7390. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter.

Mueller Letter by Las Vegas Review-Journal on Scribd