Dems Embarrass Themselves at Barr Hearing and Show Disregard for Truth
By Joseph diGenova
May 03, 2019
FOXNews.com
The interrogation of Attorney General William Barr was an embarrassing spectacle that only revealed one fact — the Democrats don’t care about the truth.
Throughout a hearing Wednesday, Democrats in the Senate Judiciary Committee grilled Barr about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, attempting to portray the two-time attorney general as a liar who failed to accurately summarize the key details of the Russia collusion investigation. The basis for those insinuations was a letter that Mueller wrote to Barr on March 27, which was suspiciously leaked the night before the hearing.
Forlorn and frustrated after the collapse of their Russia collusion hoax, Democrats seized on the letter as an opportunity to reframe the public narrative in their favor, even though it didn’t actually contradict the attorney general in any way.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., for instance, questioned whether Barr's previous congressional testimony was “misleading” in light of the revelation that Mueller was unhappy with the media coverage of Barr’s initial letter to Congress.
Other lawmakers also referenced Mueller’s letter, suggesting that Barr should have told Congress about the special counsel’s letter when lawmakers asked him at a previous hearing whether he was aware of any concerns within the Special Counsel’s Office about his characterization of the report’s findings.
Notably, however, Barr was only asked whether some members of Mueller’s team took issue with the accuracy of his summary — not whether Mueller wanted to see more context in Barr’s initial letter.
“I spoke to Bob Mueller, not members of his team,” Barr explained. “And I did not know what was being referred to, and Mueller had never told me that the expression of the findings was inaccurate.”
In fact, according to The Washington Post, Mueller explicitly denied that he thought Barr’s summary was inaccurate during a phone call with the attorney general just days after Mueller sent his letter, saying his concern was actually about media coverage that was “misinterpreting” Barr’s language.
Unsatisfied by Barr’s truthful responses, some Democrats gave up on asking questions and started grandstanding, haranguing Barr about their own interpretations of Mueller’s letter.
Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, gave the most disgusting performance, spending nearly all of her allotted time hurling baseless accusations at Barr and demanding that he resign before squeezing in a few accusatory questions. By the time she was finished, Sen. Lindsey Graham, the committee’s chairman, felt compelled to reprimand her for using her time to “slander” the attorney general rather than asking him substantive questions.
Other Democrats took a different approach, arguing that Barr is “biased” because he did not come to the same conclusion they did about whether President Trump obstructed justice — a determination Mueller explicitly punted to Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Sen. Kamala Harris, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, actually suggested that Barr should recuse himself from overseeing the ongoing investigations that grew out of the Mueller probe on the grounds that his interpretation of Mueller’s findings differed from her own.
Barr’s testimony, however, merely confirmed what we already knew: President Trump did not collude with Russia, and there is not sufficient evidence to justify charges of obstructing justice.
Sadly, no witch-hunt is complete without an inquisition, and the only thing the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing lacked in that regard was a torture rack for extracting false confessions. Barr held his ground without skipping a beat because, despite the protests of the Democrats, he’s got truth on his side.
Joseph diGenova was US Attorney for the District of Columbia and an Independent Counsel.