The attorney general stands accused of acting as the presidents personal lawyer rather than a guardian of the constitution
Moments before a highly foresaw congressional hearing at which the starring witness, the attorney general William Barr, was no longer expected to appear, Representative Steve Cohen placed a porcelain chicken on the dais.
It was 9am and Barr was officially a no-show.
“He's here,” Cohen said, gesturing toward the decorative fowl.” Chicken Barr .”
The gag added a rare drop-off of humor to a situation that was described by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, as” deadly serious” and which other resulting Democrats have warned threatens democratic norms and even paves a” road to tyranny “.
In the weeks since special advise Robert Mueller concluded his nearly two-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Barr has become a lightning rod for criticism from Democrats furious with his handling of the report. The House judiciary committee chairman, Jerry Nadler, cast Barr's absence on Thursday as part of the” administration's growing attack on American republic “.
Warring between the two branches of government intensified further on Friday when Nadler set a 9am deadline on Monday for Barr to comply with a subpoena to turn over an unredacted version of Mueller's report and the underlying evidence. If he refuses, Nadler said his committee would initiate proceedings to hold the us attorney general in contempt of Congress.
Pelosi, too, intensified her rhetoric this week, as pressure mounts on the Democratic leadership to initiate impeachment proceedings against Trump in light of the administration's refusal to cooperate with any congressional investigations.
At a press conference on Thursday, she said Barr was acting as Trump's ” enabler” and accused the us attorney general of committing a crime by lying to Congress.
Republican lawmakers, condemning” political theater”, insist Democrat are simply unwilling to accept the findings of Mueller's investigation, which found insufficient evidence to conclude that Trump's campaign conspired with Russia.
” They've read the report. They don't like “whats in” it ,” said the Republican congressman Doug Collins, the ranking member on the House judiciary committee.
The White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, rejected calls for Barr to resign and suggested that ” pathetic ” Nadler should step down instead.
Barr defended his handling of the release of the Mueller report during an appearance before the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday that did little to convince critics that he was acting as the nation's chief law enforcement officer and not as the “president's legal counsel”.
Mueller did not reach a conclusion on whether the president stymie justice, but he laid out episodes involving the president that appeared to meet the bar. In the report, Mueller explained that investigators did not determine whether Trump committed a crime because the justice department had previously said sitting chairmen cannot be indicted.
In Barr's initial summing-up to Congress, before the public release of Mueller's report, he did not provide this context and wrote simply that the special attorney had not reached a conclusion and therefore left it to the us attorney general to decide that there was no evidence to support obstruction.
When asked whether Mueller's team had very concerned about his portrayal of the special counsel's work, Barr told back-to-back congressional panels last month that he was unaware of any. This appears to contradict a letter from Mueller to Barr that surfaced this week, in which he raised concerns that the attorney general's initial summary” did not fully capture the context, nature and substance” of his investigation.
Barr's robust defense of a president's executive authority to end an investigation into himself if he believed the investigation was ” based on false allegations”, alarmed critics of both parties.
” The chairwoman does not have to sit there constitutionally and allow it to run its course ,” Barr told senators.” The president could discontinue that proceeding and it would not be corrupt intent because “hes been” falsely accused .”
Hillary Clinton warned that Barr's theory sets the country on a” road to tyranny “.
In the Washington Examiner, the conservative columnist Quin Hillyer agreed, argued:” No human , not even the president, should be allowed to adjudge his own example. Otherwise, he's a tyrant .”
Ben Wittes, the editor in chief of Lawfare and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in a piece published in the Atlantic, said he had reserved criticism of Barr after his summary and in the wake of a news conference in which he invoked Trump's language and proclaimed” no collusion “. But he called his performance before the Senate ” catastrophic “.
” Not in my memory has a sitting attorney general more diminished the credibility of his department on any subject ,” Wittes wrote.
Yet Republican lawmakers and conservatives mostly rose to Barr's defense. The editorial board of the conservative National Review said Barr's conduct had become” an obsession for Democrats and the press and the focus of endless conspiracy hypothesis” and called the furor over his four-page summary” incredibly dumb “.
At a press conference after Barr failed to appear before the House judiciary committee, Democrat fumed.
The California congressman Ted Lieu called Barr” one of the most dangerous humen” in Washington DC and said:” All options are on the table ,” including penalties and a criminal referral.
The New York congressman Hakeem Jeffries, a member of the Democratic leadership, attacked Barr as” a humiliation” and a “minion” who chose to” serve as the personal fixer for Donald Trump “.
Pelosi, in an appearance on Capitol Hill later the working day, said she had lost sleep contemplate Barr's witnes before the Senate judiciary committee.
” I kept guessing, what is likely to be motivating the us attorney general of the United Nation to disrespect national constitutions of the United Nation, the separation of powers, the right of Congress to know ?” she said at a press conference on Capitol hill this week.
The former FBI director James Comey, whose firing by Trump prompted the appointment of a special counsel, offered one theory.
” Amoral leaders have a way of revealing the character of those around them ,” he wrote.
Trump, Comey added,” feeds your soul in small bites “.
Read more: www.theguardian.com
