Barr Grilled by Senate

            U.S. Attorney General William Barr was grilled by the Senate Judiciary Committee today about the Robert Mueller’s special counsel report on his investigation of Donald Trump. I did not watch the entire hearing, but I could plainly see that the questioning by members of the committee were partisan. Democrats did their best to trap Barr in his words, and Republicans were insistent on proving the point that the investigation was a witch hunt.

            Mueller found in his nearly two-year investigation that there was no evidence that Trump colluded with the Russian during the 2016 presidential election. He left open the question of whether Trump obstructed the investigation, so Barr and his top deputy made the decision that there was not enough evidence to support any criminal charges.

            Fred Lucas at The Daily Signal determined that there were seven big moments from the hearing and listed them as follows. 

1. Barr on Mueller’s Letter. [Mueller sent a letter to Barr three days after Barr sent a four-page letter to Congress giving the bottom line of the investigation. Mueller wanted Barr to release more information immediately, and Barr wanted to release the entire redacted report at one time. The report was published two weeks later.]

2. Investigation of Spying on Trump. [In response to a Senator’s complaint about his using the word “spying,” Barr replied:] “My first job was in the CIA, and I don’t think the word spying has any pejorative connotation at all. To me, the question is always whether or not it’s authorized and adequately predicated spying.”

The attorney general continued:

I think spying is a good English word that in fact doesn’t have synonyms because it is the broadest word incorporating all forms of covert intelligence collect, so I’m not going to back off the word spying.

Frankly, we went back and looked at press usage and, up until all the faux outrage a few weeks ago, it’s commonly used in the press to refer to authorized activity. It’s commonly used by me.

3. Lindsey Graham’s Colorful Language. [Graham read text messages that had some dirty words.]

4. Barr “Surprised” by Mueller on Obstruction…. Graham asked of Mueller’s leaving the conclusion on obstruction to Barr: “Were you surprised he was going to let you decide?”

Barr: “Yes, I was surprised. I think the function he was carrying out, the investigative and prosecutive function, is performed for the purpose…”

5. Trump “Falsely Accused.” …Some [Democrats on the Judiciary Committee] became annoyed when Barr said several times in testimony that the president had been “falsely accused” of conspiring with the Russian operatives to win the presidential election.

“If the president is being falsely accused, which the evidence now suggests, the accusations against him were false and he knew they were false, and he felt that this investigation was unfair, propelled by his political opponents, and was hampering his ability to govern. That is not a corrupt motive for replacing an independent counsel.”

6. A distinction on Ousting Mueller. [When asked if trying to fire Mueller was a crime] Barr responded that it was not.

“There is a distinction between saying to someone, ‘Go fire him, go fire Mueller,’ and saying, ‘Have him removed based on conflict,’” Barr said.

[Senator Dianne] Feinstein seemed puzzled and asked what was the difference.

“If you remove someone for a conflict of interest, there would presumably be another person [brought in as special counsel],” Barr said.

7. Harris Questions Report and Rosenstein. When Barr against stated that he and Rosenstein decided together what to do about the obstruction case, Harris, the California Democrat, asked whether he looked at “underlying evidence.”

“You accept the [Mueller] report as evidence,” Harris, appearing angry, said. “You did not question or look at the underlying evidence that supports the conclusions of the report?”

“We accepted the statements in the report as the factual record,” Barr later answered. “We did not go underneath it to see whether or not they were accurate. We accepted it as accurate.”

Harris seemed to be stunned that Barr would accept the Mueller report at face value:

As the attorney general of the United States, you run the United States Department of Justice. If in any U.S. attorney’s office around the country, the head of that office, when being asked to make a critical decision – in this case, the person who holds the highest office in the land – on whether or not that person committed a crime, would you accept them recommending a charging decision to you if they had not review the evidence?

Barr answered: “Well, that’s a question for Bob Mueller. He’s the U.S. attorney [on this case]. He’s the one who presents the report.”

It’s not standard procedure, Barr explained to Harris, to reinvestigate what the investigators already have done.

“This is not a mysterious process and [at] the Department of Justice, we have [prosecution] memos and declination memos every day coming up,” Barr said. “And we don’t go and look at the underlying evidence. We take the characterization of the evidence as true.”

            Many people have opinions on the Mueller report and on Barr’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Stephen Garcia at Deseret News compiled several statements on Barr’s testimony. 

Barr himself shot back at the Democratic members of the committee during a tense conversation between himself and Connecticut Democratic Sen. Dick Blumenthal: “The job of the Justice Department is now over,” Barr said. “We have to stop using the criminal justice process as a political weapon.”

After the hearing Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the head of the committee, said unless something came up, there would be no more hearings about the Mueller probe. “It’s over. If there’s any dispute about a conversation, then (Robert Mueller will) come but I’m not going to retry the case. I’m not calling (former White House counsel Don) McGahn. It is over.”

Sen. Mike Lee defended Barr by calling the Mueller probe a weapon used by

Democrats aimed at Trump. “Time and time again,” Lee said. “The president’s political adversaries have exploited the Mueller probe, its mere existence, to spread baseless innuendo in an effort to undermine the legitimacy of the 2016 election and the effectiveness of this administration.”

            These comments were from the Republican side of the aisle and supportive. There were comments from the Democrats and RINOs that were not supportive. The investigation as well as the Senate hearing did nothing to change opinions. Those who wanted in the past to take Trump down still want him to fail. Those who were supportive of Trump in the past are still supportive.   

            The nation is still divided, but the lies of the Democrats have been exposed. There was no collusion between Trump and the Russians, and there can be no obstruction without a crime first taking place. It does not really matter though because the progressive and liberal clowns will come up with some other excuse in an attempt to stop Trump from making America great.