Thread by @ZoeTillman

As AG Bill Barr prepares to testify this morning before the Senate Judiciary Committee, House Judiciary Dems have just released the letter that special counsel Robert Mueller sent to Barr on March 27

https://twitter.com/HouseJudiciary/status/1123584968960172033

AG Bill Barr's hearing before Senate Judiciary is underway. Chair Lindsey Graham's opening remarks spend a lot of time on Peter Strzok (the FBI agent involved early in the Russia probe who sent anti-Trump texts), saying they'll focus on the origin of the probe post-Mueller

We now have Mueller's 3/27 letter to Barr. What he said:
- That Barr could release intros and executive summaries of both volumes asap
- That Barr's 3/24 letter "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance" of the special counsel's work
buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…

The letter also says that the special counsel's office communicatd its concerns right away, the morning after Barr released his March 24 letter summarizing what he described as Mueller's "principal conclusions" buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…

The Justice Department released the redacted version of Mueller's full report on April 18 (see: buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…), more than three weeks after Mueller said Barr should, and could, release the intros and executive summaries buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…

Barr is up now. Here are his prepared opening statement, which were made available last night, but Barr is not reading from this

https://twitter.com/ZoeTillman/status/1123413487257096192

Barr said that he met with Mueller on March 5 to get a read-out on what his conclusions would be. At that meeting, he reiterated that in order to get the report out soon, he asked they identify 6(e) (grand jury) material, but when he got it, it did not come in that form

Barr says he learned for the first time at the March 5 meeting with Mueller that Mueller didn't plan on reaching a decision on obstruction. "We were, frankly, surprised," Barr said.

Barr says he decided to write the March 24 letter summarizing Mueller's bottom-line conclusions because "the body politic was in a high state of agitation," pundits were predicting forthcoming indictments, and Barr didn't think it was in the public interest to let that all go on

Barr says that after he got Mueller's March 27 letter expressing concern with Barr's March 24 letter (see: buzzfeed.com/zoetillman/mue…), he called Mueller, and Mueller said Barr's letter wasn't inaccurate, but media coverage was

Graham asks if Mueller objected to any redactions. Barr hedges, says he wouldn't say "objected," but there may have been "a few judgment calls" about whether something should be treated as a reputational interest — that is, falling into the third-party privacy/reputation bucket

On obstruction, and Barr finding that the evidence didn't support criminal charges, Graham asks Barr: "Do you feel good about your decision?

Barr: "Absolutely."

Feinstin begins her questioning by asking about the McGahn episode, where former White House counsel Don McGahn said that Trump was trying to get McGahn to lie about what Trump told him to do re: removing Mueller because of a conflict of interest

Barr says they didn't think the govt could establish obstruction because of daylight between a NYT story that Trump thought was wrong saying he told McGahn to fire Mueller, and what Trump said he told McGahn, which was to raise the conflict of interest issue and have him removed

Barr said the difference is that removing Mueller because of a conflict of interest suggests there would be another special counsel who wasn't conflicted (there's been no evidence/reporting about consideration of an alternative special counsel if Mueller were removed)

Grassley asks Barr if he's looking into whether there was any "spying" on the Trump campaign and whether it was "properly predicated." Barr says he has people in the Justice Dept. "helping me review the activities over the summer of 2016"

After years of a united front between DOJ and Mueller's office, we're seeing some rifts at this hearing: Barr says he thought that if Mueller wasn't going to make a prosecutorial decision about whether Trump committed obstruction, he shouldn't have investigated it

We also heard Barr blame Mueller for the delay in getting the report out — Barr said he asked Mueller to make clear what info had to be redacted because it was grand jury material, and Mueller didn't do that when he initially sent the report

Leahy asks Barr about his earlier testimony where he said he wasn't aware of concerns from Mueller's team — Barr says he spoke with Mueller, not unidentified members of his team, and that was the question he was answering. He also said Mueller didn't disupte accuracy of findings

Whitehouse asks Barr about using the word "spying" to discuss authorized surveillance — Barr says his first job was in the CIA, and he doesn't think it has a pejorative meaning. Whitehouse says it's not commonly used by the dept, Barr says it is by him

Graham is now taking an hour break in Barr's hearing

When AG Bill Barr testified before Congress in early April, he didn't reveal a letter he got from Mueller in late March expressing concern with how Barr was handling things. Today, Barr defended that decision in the face of deep skepticism from Democrats
buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…

Barr's hearing has resumed. Here's our story on how things have gone so far: buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…

And you should read this piece by @elianayjohnson that includes this quote: “Barr is the closest thing we have to Cheney”:
politico.com/story/2019/05/…

Klobuchar, one of three presidential candidates on the committee, is up. She begins by saying she thought Barr went out of his way not to disclose Mueller's letter. She asks Barr if he'd work with her on a bipartisan election security bill. Barr says he'll take a look

Klobuchar and Barr went back and forth over whether Trump was trying to convince witnesses to change their stories with his public comments about Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort, and private comms between lawyers. Barr insists they wouldn't pass muster in a criminal case

Sasse focuses his questions more broadly on the threat of foreign inteference in US elections. He concludes by saying the internet has made it much easier for foreign operatives: "In a digital cyber era, you don't need a bar and a hooker anymore"

Coons goes back to Barr's March 24 letter, saying it obscured the president's conduct, and gave the president three weeks (before the full report came out) to shape a narrative that Trump was exonerated. He also revisits l'affaire McGahn, which is clearly a focus for Dems

Blumenthal asks if Barr has discussed the ongoing investigations referenced in Mueller's report with anyone in the White House. Barr says he doesn't think so, and doesn't recall any "sustantive" discussions

Blumenthal says Barr exonerated or cleared the president. Barr: "No. I didn't exonerate. I said that we did not believe that there was sufficient evidence to establish an obstruction offense, which is the job of the Justice Department."

Ernst is shifting the discussion back more broadly to foreign interference in elections — we've been largely ping-ponging between Democrats asking about Mueller's report and Barr's March 24 letter, and Republicans asking about the origins of the probe and foreign threats

Hirono begins by saying Barr is no different from Rudy Giuliani, Kellyanne Conway, "or any of the other people who sacrifice their once decent reputation for the grifter and liar who sits in the oval office"

Hirono comes out swinging re: Barr's testimony last month where he didn't disclose the letter he got from Mueller in late March: "You lied to Congress."

Things briefly got heated at the end of Hirono's time. Graham said she had "slandered this man from top to bottom." Hirono replied: "You certainly have your opinion and I have mine."

An interesting/odd exchange: Blackburn begins by saying that Mueller assembled a group of lawyers that would be called a "dream team." She asks if Barr considered these lawyers the "best and brightest" in the field. Barr replies: "Not necessarily."

Barr then goes on to say that Mueller assembled a "very competent team," and that they were "tenacious investigators," devoted to finding the truth, and if there was evidence to warrant charges, they would have found it

We're now onto our second presidential candidate on the committee, Sen. Booker. He begins by saying Barr is "adding normalcy to a point where we should be sounding alarms as opposed to saying that there's nothing to see here"

Booker quotes language Barr used that the American people should be "grateful" for confirmation the Trump campaign didn't cooperate with Russians, and asks if people should be "grateful" for info in the report about the Trump campaign welcoming benefits of Russian interference

Barr says he isn't quite sure what Booker is asking, but repeats that there was no evidence of a conspiracy or criminal activity re: Russia's election interference efforts

Sen. Harris, our third presidential candidate on the committee, is up. She asks if Trump or anyone at the White House asked or suggested opening an investigation into anyone. Barr struggles to respond, says they haven't asked, but there have been "discussion of matters out there"

Harris is pressing Barr about whether he and Rosenstein reviewed the underlying evidence in making their conclusion. Barr says no, they relied on the evidence as presented in Mueller's report, which is common practice when reviewing prosecution/declination decisions

Harris asks if Barr consulted career ethics officials before having Rosenstein involved in the prosecution/declination decision, since Rosenstein was a witness re: Comey's firing. Barr says Rosenstein was cleared before he arrived to serve as acting AG and oversee the probe

Crapo asks if there's political bias within the FBI, and whether Barr is looking into that. Barr says he hasn't seen that since he arrived, and that FBI Director Chris Wray has put in place a new leadership team that is doing a great job

Cruz begins by thanking Barr for coming back to DOJ to serve as AG, knowing that he'd be subject to "the kind of slanderous treatment, the Kavanaugh treatment that we have seen of senators impugning your integrity"

Cruz gets a rare laugh out of Barr — he says that it's a "weak argument" to say Barr was trying to hide information, because Barr released the executive summaries (and the full report) a couple weeks after Mueller's letter: "You're doing a very lousy job of hiding it"

Cruz asks about surveillance of the Trump campaign. He asks if the Obama admin investigated any other presidential candidate.

Barr: "I don't know." As Cruz starts another Q, Barr jumps in: "I guess they were investigating Hillary Clinton for the email, the email thing"

We're in a second round of questioning. Leahy asked about references in the report to Congress' role, and Barr pushed back on the idea that Mueller intended his report as a referral to Congress, saying that wasn't why DOJ did grand jury investigations

Whitehouse asks when exactly Barr decided he would make a decision on the obstruction issue. He says March 24. Whitehouse is incredulous, and asks if Barr is saying he decided to make a decision the day he issued his letter. Barr repeats that he made the decision on March 24.

And with that, today's hearing with AG Barr is over. He's scheduled to appear tomorrow before the the House Judiciary Committee, although there's still a dispute over format

https://twitter.com/mimms/status/1123667278241894404

In case you weren't able to watch all 4+ hours of AG Bill Barr's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, we've got you covered: buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…

What was notable was the rifts Barr's testimony revealed between him and Mueller. Not just calling Mueller's letter "snitty," but also blaming Mueller for the delay in releasing the report and criticizing Mueller for not reaching a decision re: obstruction buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…