Barr preps for Senate testimony while showdown with House looms

WASHINGTON — A showdown with the House awaits this week, but Attorney General William Barr will first appear Wednesday before a Senate panel about his handling of the special counsel report released this month.

The House Judiciary Committee is expected to vote Wednesday morning on whether to expand the format that would allow staff lawyers to question Barr after lawmakers finish — an arrangement the Justice Department said would force Barr to skip the hearing.

At the same time as that showdown escalates, Barr will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee where the chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has praised him for transparency while Democrats have called for an inspector general investigation into Barr’s handling of the special counsel report.

In a letter to the Justice Department inspector general on Tuesday, Democratic senators on the committee said “it is unclear what statute, regulation, or policy led the attorney general to interject his own conclusion that the president’s conduct did not amount to obstruction of justice.”

The letter was written by Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii., and signed by other committee Democrats, including four seeking the party’s presidential nomination, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.

Discrepancy in Barr memo

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., is not on the Judiciary Committee, but the former Nevada attorney general said she supports “further investigation,” and seeks answers on how Barr came to the conclusions in his memo summarizing the report.

“There is a clear demarcation in his summary and what I am reading in the report,” Cortez Masto told the Review-Journal.

She said oversight hearings were important in this case, where special counsel Robert Mueller found clear indications that Russians interfered with the 2016 presidential election. The report also documents incidents where Russians contacted Trump campaign officials, who never reported those contacts to American intelligence agencies.

Mueller found no evidence that President Donald Trump colluded with the Russians. But he pointedly did not exonerate the president for obstruction of justice, leaving that determination up to Congress.

Nonetheless, Trump has repeatedly claimed “total exoneration” from the report. But Mueller detailed several incidents where Trump ordered staff to take actions to impede or stop the investigation, including an order to former White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller.

McGahn did not.

Investigate FBI, not Trump

Graham, meanwhile, has said he would pursue further investigation into the FBI’s handling of the investigation, and particularly former FBI Director James Comey.

Trump fired Comey, who led the initial investigation into Russian meddling in the election, in 2017.

Republicans on the panel also question the use of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants that were used to investigate a Trump campaign aide who had no ties to Russian operatives and was cleared in the investigation. The GOP lawmakers have questioned whether the FISA warrants were misused.

Barr volunteered to appear before the House and Senate Judiciary committees following the release of the 448-page report earlier this month. He also said he would not stop Mueller from testifying.

In the House, Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., has asked Mueller to testify before May 23.

Graham has not asked Mueller to appear before his Senate committee.

Democrats and the House and Senate, meanwhile, have asked Barr to release an unredacted version of the Mueller report.

Barr has offered to make the full report available to a dozen lawmakers on key committees, a concession that Democrats in both legislative chambers have rejected.

Nadler has subpoenaed the entire report and has given the Justice Department until Thursday to comply.

Barr has sparred with House Democrats over subpoenas, and the vote Wednesday on the format for the scheduled hearing Thursday will determine whether he testifies this week.

Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7390. Follow @garymartindc