Thread by @willchamberlain

Lots of new material in Barr's opening statement

Barr's team pressed Mueller on March 5th about Mueller's decision not to make a recommendation on obstruction

Mueller didn't have an answer - they were "still formulating" their excuse

#BarrHearing

A key point made by Barr - if Mueller KNEW he wasn't going to come to a conclusion on obstruction, why did he investigate it for over a year?

That's not what DOJ resources are for.

DOJ doesn't run smear campaigns.

It prosecutes, or it doesn't.

#BarrHearing

Barr brought up 18 USC § 1512(c)(2)

You'll be hearing more about statute that shortly on @HumanEvents

It matters more than you might suspect

#BarrHearing

Watching Grassley, I'm reminded of the Kavanaugh Hearings

Grateful for his service, but Graham is a serious upgrade as chairman of the Judiciary Committee

#BarrHearing

BARR: "We have multiple criminal leak investigations under way."

#BarrHearing

Whoa

Barr is lighting up Leahy and Mueller's staff right now

Pointing out that Mueller's staff are the ones who contested the "findings" of Barr's memo - not Mueller himself

Sorry Senator Leahy

#BarrHearing

Now we've got Durbin v. Barr.

Durbin's one of the best lawyers that the Dems have

Fireworks should ensue

#BarrHearing

Durbin's now flipping back and forth between the June 2018 memo and the March summary

Deceptive

#BarrHearing

Mike Lee starts off by quoting Scalia's famous dissent in Morrison v. Olson

This makes the law nerd in me happy

#BarrHearing

Barr making clear - at the end of the day, Mueller was a US Attorney, subordinate to Barr, and under Barr's supervision.

Dems are not entitled to their own attorney general.

#BarrHearing

Whitehouse, as he often does, trying to put words in AG Barr's mouth

Barr isn't having any of it

#BarrHearing

Whitehouse: "Spying isn't a word commonly used by the department."

Barr: "Well, it's commonly used by me."

BEAST MODE AG

#BarrHearing

It just so happens that I spent much of this week writing a detailed article on the Mueller Report and the appointment of AG Bill Barr

I think you'll enjoy it

It's called CHECKMATE

Check it out

humanevents.com/2019/05/01/che…

Sen. Blumenthal: “You’ve been very agile and adroit in your responses, Mr. Barr, but I believe history will judge you harshly.”

Given that Blumenthal is notorious for lying about serving in Vietnam, he would know about being judged harshly, wouldn’t he

#BarrHearing

Blumenthal is pulling out a chart “showing” Trump’s obstruction

That chart relies on a broad interpretation of 18 USC 1512

Which I just wrote about for @HumanEvents

#BarrHearing

humanevents.com/2019/05/01/che…

Listening to Senator Hirono is just grating

She’s launched a vicious personal attack on the President and AG Barr

In normal times, this would be worthy of on official censure

#BarrHearing

They can't lay a glove on Barr

Harris tried to cross-examine him aggressively for 5 minutes

Got nowhere

#BarrHearing

Rosenstein had been cleared to supervise the Mueller investigation by DOJ ethics officials

Harris bizarrely asked whether cleared to make a charging decision as though that were a distinct issue

It's not, they are one and the same

#BarrHearing

Also it's a bizarre theory to *criticize* AG Barr for conferring with Rosenstein when Dems had spent two years DEMANDING that Rosenstein be allowed to supervise Mueller

They didn't care about the conflict then

Because they thought Rosenstein was their guy

#BarrHearing

Ted Cruz is just DESTROYING the Dems right now

"So their argument is that you delayed the release of 19 pages by a couple of weeks? That is an EXCEPTIONALLY weak argument."

Barr chuckles.

#BarrHearing