William Barr testifies on the Mueller report

Attorney General William Barr told lawmakers that Robert Mueller’s report “was my baby” in the days after the special counsel filed it.

Barr said Mueller is equivalent of a US attorney, and was working under the attorney general.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, said Attorney General William Barr was practicing “masterful hairsplitting” when he answered questions about special counsel Robert Mueller’s letter.

Whitehouse: “You knew that the Mueller letter was going to become public and that was probably yesterday? 

Barr: “I think so.”

Whitehouse: “OK. When did you decide to make that letter available to us in Congress?” 

Barr: “This morning.”

Whitehouse: “Would you concede you had an opportunity to make this letter public on April 4, when representative [Charlie] Crist asked you a very related question?”

Barr: “I don’t know what you mean by related question. To me it seemed to be a very different question.”

Whitehouse: “I can’t even follow that down the road. That’s masterful hairsplitting.”

Attorney General William Barr said President Trump “fully cooperated” with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

But several times in his report, Mueller points out how Trump and his team fell short of complete cooperation. Mueller also noted how they repeatedly requested a sit-down interview with Trump, but the President refused.

Mueller said he wasn’t satisfied with the written testimony Trump submitted in 2018:

Regarding the President being asked to clarify some answers regarding Michael Cohen: 

Also, regarding an in-person interview: 

Beyond Trump himself, Mueller also pointed out how some of Trump’s campaign associates took steps that make it more difficult for the investigation to get to the bottom of the “collusion” question:

Here’s a brief timeline of the events leading up the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s redacted report:

Attorney General William Barr asserted to the Senate Judiciary Committee that President Trump was concerned with special counsel Robert Mueller’s potential conflicts of interest when he tried to remove him.

Mueller acknowledges this, but says Trump was immediately told the conflicts of interest were “ridiculous” and didn’t affect Mueller’s service.

“This evidence shows that the President was not just seeking an examination of whether conflicts existed but instead was looking to use asserted conflicts as a way to terminate the special counsel,” Mueller wrote.

Mueller’s report also directly refutes Barr’s statement today that Trump may not have believed he was asking White House Counsel Don McGahn to say something false. In his analysis of the episodes with McGahn, the Mueller report says: “There also is evidence that the President knew that he should not have made those calls to McGahn.”

Here’s what Mueller’s report says about the episode with then-White House counsel Don McGahn:

Mueller identifies this motivation as part of Trump’s intent to prevent the investigation of from continuing.

“Substantial evidence indicates that the President’s attempts to remove the Special Counsel were linked to the Special Counsel’s oversight of investigations that involved the President’s conduct– and, most immediately, to reports that the President was being investigated for potential obstruction of justice,” Mueller also wrote. 

Attorney General William Barr said he has no issue with special counsel Robert Mueller testifying before Congress. But allowing former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify would be up to President Trump, he said.

Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat, asked him about the possible testimony.

Durbin: At this point, do you believe — you’re saying — what about Bob Mueller? Should he be allowed to testify? 

Barr: I already said publicly, I have no objection. 

Durbin: Don McGahn, should he be allowed to testify? 

Barr: That’s a call for the President to make. 

Durbin: Well he’s a private citizen at this point.

Barr: I assume he would be testifying about privileged matters. 

Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin criticized his Republican counterparts for their focus on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails during today’s hearing.

“This is really not supposed to be about the Mueller investigation, the Russian involvement in the election, the Trump campaign, and so forth,” Durbin said. “It is really about Hillary Clinton’s emails.”

The Illinois senator then went through a list of scandals and conspiracy theories surrounding the former Democratic presidential nominee.

“Hillary Clinton’s emails, questions have to be asked about Benghazi along the way, what about Travelgate, Whitewater — there’s a lot of material we should be going through today, according to their response to this,” he said.

Durbin slammed Republicans, saying it is “totally unresponsive to the reality of what the American people want to know.”

“They paid a lot of money, $25 million, for this report. I respect Mr. Mueller and believe he came up with a sound report, though I don’t agree with all of it. But I find General Barr that some of the things that you’ve engaged in really leave me wondering what you believe your role as attorney general is when it comes to something like this,” Durbin said.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, accused Attorney General William Barr of being “purposely misleading” in his testimony today.

Here’s how it unfolded:

Barr: Reports have emerged recently – press reports – that members of the special counsels’ team are frustrated at some level with the limited information included in your March 24 letter in that they don’t adequately or accurately portray the report’s findings. I don’t know what members he’s talking about, and I certainly and not aware of any challenge to the accuracy of the findings.

Leahy: Mr. Barr, you seem to have learned the filibuster rules even better than the senators do, my question was, why did you say you are not aware of concerns, when weeks before your testimony, Mr. Mueller had expressed concerns to you. That’s a very simple thing.

Barr: I answered a question, and the question was relating to unidentified members who were expressing frustration over the accuracy relating to findings. I don’t know what that refers to at all. I talked directly to Bob Mueller, not members of his team. And even though I did not know what was being referred to and Mueller had never told me that the expression of the findings was inaccurate but I did then volunteer that I thought they were talking about the desire to have more information put out. But it wasn’t my purpose to put out more information,.

Leahy: Mr. Barr, I feel that your answer was purposely misleading, and I think others do, too.

Attorney General William Barr said he is reviewing an infamous dossier — compiled by retired British spy Christopher Steele — as part of his probe into the origins of the Russia investigation.

He said it’s not “entirely speculative” to consider the dossier as part of the Russian disinformation campaign in the election.

Asked by Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, if he could state that the dossier was in fact not part of the Russian influence campaign, Barr said, “No, I can’t state that with confidence and that is one of the areas that I’m reviewing. I’m concerned about it, and I don’t think it’s entirely speculative.”

About those claims: CNN revisited the dossier earlier this year and analyzed the veracity of some of the claims, two years after it first came into public view. The most salacious claims in the dossier remain unproven – like allegations that top Trump campaign officials colluded with Russians. But many of the allegations that form the bulk of the intelligence memos have held up over time, or have proven to be at least partially true. Much of the material holds up with what we now know about Trump’s team, their contacts with Russians and Russian election meddling.

Attorney General William Barr said that during a March meeting with special counsel Robert Mueller, Mueller “reiterated several times in a group meeting that he was not saying that but for the OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] opinion he would have found obstruction.”

This was the latest in a series of statements from Barr in which he downplayed the role of the Justice Department guidelines against indicting a president. Barr made the same claim at his press conference before releasing the Mueller report in April.

Why this matters: Internal Justice Department policies say that a sitting president cannot be indicted. The policy comes from the OLC and it dates back to the Nixon administration. It is binding on all Justice Department employees, including Mueller and his team of prosecutors.

But despite Barr’s comments, Mueller’s report directly explains how this had a major impact on his internal deliberations. In effect, Mueller framed his entire obstruction investigation around the notion that he couldn’t bring any charges against Trump even if he found ironclad evidence against him, because of the OLC opinion.

That appeared on the very first page of the volume that addressed obstruction of justice. This framework is a far cry from Barr’s public pronouncements that the OLC opinion had no bearing on obstruction endgame. 

Attorney General William Barr just said in an exchange with Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein that he believes there is difference between firing the special counsel and telling then-White House Counsel Don McGahn to remove him “based on conflict.”

Here’s the exchange:

Feinstein: You still have a situation where a president essentially tries to change the lawyer’s account in order to prevent further criticism of himself.

Barr: Well that’s not a crime.

Feinstein: So you can, in this situation, instruct someone to lie?

Barr: No, it has to be, well, to be obstruction of justice, the lie has to be tied to impairing the evidence in a particular proceeding. McGahn had already given his evidence, and I think it would be plausible that the purpose of McGahn memorializing what the President was asking was to make the record that the President never directed him to fire. And there is a distinction between saying to someone, “Go fire him, go fire Mueller” and saying, “have him removed based on conflict.” They have different results.

Feinstein: And what would that conflict be?

Barr: The difference between them is that if you removed someone for a conflict of interest, then there would be presumably another person appointed.

Attorney General William Barr said officials in the Justice Department are reviewing the early days of the Russia investigation and allegations of unlawful government surveillance, referred to by the President and his allies as “spygate.”

Barr said it was too early to commit to sharing any potential conclusions with Congress but said “I envision some kind of reporting at the end of this.”

Here’s what we know about the “spying” claim:

The surveillance of Trump campaign aide Carter Page, under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, has become a rallying cry for Republicans. They say it proves that the FBI abused tools typically meant to target terrorists to instead prey on the Trump campaign.

But these talking points ignore critical facts. The surveillance did begin under the Obama administration, but Trump’s own appointees at the Justice Department continued it. When it started, Page had already left Trump’s campaign. And all four federal judges who approved the warrants and renewals had been appointed by Republican presidents.

The FBI controversially used some material from a dossier of explosive memos written by a retired British spy alleging widespread Trump-Russia collusion, in addition to other intelligence that remains redacted, when applying for the first FISA warrant. Republicans have said this is an abuse of US intelligence because the dossier was funded by Democrats who opposed Trump.

There’s also the informant, a longtime FBI source who met with Page, Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and another Trump campaign official to glean information for investigators about their Russia ties.

Trump dubbed this situation “spygate” and said it shows that the Obama administration planted a “spy” in his campaign. But CNN reported that this isn’t true. The informant wasn’t spying on Team Trump for political purposes. His role was to assist a serious FBI investigation. Both Page and Papadopoulos later acknowledged having extensive contacts with Russians.

Attorney General William Barr and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein got into a tense back-and-forth about whether President Trump tried to change former White House counsel Don McGahn’s account.

Here’s how the exchange went down:

Feinstein: Does existing law prohibit efforts to get a witness to lie to say something the witness believes is false?

Barr: Yes. Lie to the government, yes.

Feinstein: And what law is that?

Barr: Obstruction statutes.

Feinstein: The obstruction statute. And you don’t have it, I guess, before you?

Barr: Well, I’m not sure which one they are referring to here — it was probably, 1512 C2.

Feinstein: So, these things in effect constitute obstruction.

Barr: Well you are talking in general terms.

Feinstein: I am talking about specifically — yes, you are correct in a sense, that the special counsel in his report found substantial evidence that the President tried to change McGahn’s account in order to prevent — and this is a quote — further scrutiny of the President toward the investigation. End quote. The special counsel also found McGahn is a credible witness with no motives to lie or exaggerate. So what I am asking you, then, is that a credible charge, under the obstruction statute?

Barr: We felt that that episode, the government would not be able to establish obstruction. The — if you go back and if you look at the episode where McGahn — the President gave McGahn an obstruction — an instruction, McGahn’s version of that is quite clear, and each time he gave it, which is that the instruction said, go to Rosenstein, raise the issue of conflict of interest, and Mueller has to go because of this conflict of interest. So there is no question that that — that the, whatever instruction was given, McGahn had to do with conflict — with Mueller’s conflict of interest.

Sen. Lindsey Graham pressed Attorney General William Barr about special counsel Robert Mueller’s decision not to move forward on obstruction of justice.

Barr said he was surprised that Mueller let him decide on obstruction of justice.

Here’s how the exchange went:

Graham: As to obstruction of justice, were you surprised he was going to let you decide? 

Barr: Yes, I was surprised. I think the very purpose – the function he was carrying out, the prosecutive, investigative and prosecutive function is performed for the purpose of –

Graham: “How many people did he actually indict, do you know?”

Barr: I can’t remember off the top of my head. 

Graham: It was a lot. 

Barr: Yeah. 

Graham: So he actually has the ability to indict if he wants to. He has used that power during the investigation. Is that correct? 

Barr: That’s correct. And the other thing that was confusing to me is that the investigation carried on for a while as additional episodes were looked into. Episodes involving the president. And so my question is or was, why were those investigated if, at the end of the day, you weren’t going to reach a decision on them? 

Attorney General William Barr said he gave special counsel Robert Mueller the opportunity to read his four-page memo to Congress – which he said was not supposed to be a summary of the lengthy report – but Mueller declined.

Barr said he later received the letter from Mueller in which the special counsel expressed concerns about Barr’s memo.

“I asked him if he was suggesting that the March 24th letter was inaccurate and he said no, but that the press reporting had been inaccurate,” Barr said. “But he was very clear with me that he was not suggesting that we had misrepresented his report.”

Attorney General William Barr recalled being “surprised” that special counsel Robert Mueller would not be making a decision on whether President Trump obstructed justice.

“We were, frankly, surprised by that they were not going to reach a decision on obstruction. And we asked them a lot about the reasoning behind this and the basis for this,” Barr said.

Mueller’s decision came up during a March 5 meeting, Barr said.

Barr then explained Mueller’s reasoning for the decision.

“He said that in the future, the facts of the case against a president might be such that a special counsel would recommend abandoning the OLC opinion but this is not such a case,” he said.

Barr also said he was confused by why Mueller continued investigating obstruction if he felt he couldn’t bring it to a conclusion.

Here’s how Mueller explains it:

“Second, while the OLC opinion concludes that a sitting President may not be prosecuted, it recognizes that a criminal investigation during the President’s term is permissible. The OLC opinion also recognizes that a President does not have immunity after he leaves office. And if individuals other than the President committed an obstruction offense, they may be prosecuted at this time. Given those considerations, the facts known to us, and the strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of the criminal justice system, we conducted a thorough factual investigation in order to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary materials were available.”

Attorney General William Barr said the publicly released version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report was only “lightly redacted.”

Barr added that the “vast bulk of those redactions relate to volume one,” which is the part of the report that “deals with collusion and it relates to existing, ongoing cases.”

“Volume two has only about 2% redactions for the public version. So 98% of volume two dealing with obstruction is available to the public,” he said. 

“Given the limited amount of redactions, I believe the publicly released report will allow every American to understand the special counsel’s work,” Barr said.

Last month, Barr described the four kinds of information that redacted in the report:

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a ranking member in the Senate Judiciary Committee, outlined details from special counsel Robert Mueller’s report in her opening statement – majorly contrasting Graham’s.

She drew comparisons between special counsel Robert Mueller’s report and Attorney General William Barr’s four-page memo didn’t fully capture his report.

“Finally, while the March letter to Congress and the April press conference left the impression there were no remaining questions to examine, this report notes several limitations Mueller faced while gathering the facts that Congress needed to examine,” she said.

She also called on Mueller to testify before the committee.

Feinstein’s opening statement differed greatly from Sen. Lindsey Graham, the committee’s chairman.

Graham’s first 10 minutes of the Barr hearing rehashed some of the more prominent 2016 scandals and conspiracy theories, such as…

The TVs in the White House are on and tuned to William Barr’s testimony. So far, some officials are downplaying the significance of Mueller’s letter, saying the underlying conclusion of “no collusion” is not in question (though Mueller, of course, did not use that phrase).

The letter was related to Barr’s assertions on obstruction and not on the questions of whether Trump associates conspired with Russia.

One official suggested the President’s initial “total exoneration” response to the report — which was informed by Barr’s memo to lawmakers — would not likely have been dramatically different had Barr’s letter been worded differently, since the “no collusion” conclusion was more cut-and-dry.  

Trump was always going to extract the most positive version of the findings to make his case, this official said, whether Barr helped him along or not.

Officials still believe the most damaging part of Mueller’s report for Trump was its broad depiction of the President as unethical and dishonest — and not any specific allegation that he worked to short-circuit the Mueller probe.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he’s read most of special counsel Robert Mueller’s nearly 400-page report on Russian interference in the 2016 US election.

Earlier in his remarks, Graham said the report showed “no collusion, no coordination, no conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government regarding the 2016 election.”

This is how he ended his opening remarks:

“I appreciate very much what Mr. Mueller did for the country. I have read most of the report. For me, it is over.”

Lindsey Graham, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Russia interfered with the 2016 US election — and insisted that they are “still doing it.”

Graham said the US needs to do more to “defend democracy” from Russia and other “bad actors.”

“It could be the Chinese or somebody next. My take away from this report is that we’ve got a lot of work to do to defend democracy against the Russians and other bad actors,” he said.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, just kicked off today’s hearing with Attorney General William Barr.

In his opening statement, Graham held up a copy of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, saying it showed that there was “no collusion, no coordination, no conspiracy between the trump campaign and the Russian government regarding the 2016 election.”

He then addressed Mueller’s evidence on the obstruction of justice issue.

“As to obstruction of justice, Mr. Mueller left it to Mr. Barr to decide after two years and all this time. He said ‘Mr. Barr, you decide.’ Mr. Barr did.”

Minutes before this hearing, Mueller’s letter to Barr was made public. In that letter, Mueller said Barr’s summary of his report did not “fully capture the context, nature and substance of the investigation,” spurring “public confusion.”

Graham has, so far, not mentioned Mueller’s letter.

In his letter to Attorney General William Barr, special counsel Robert Mueller said Barr’s summary of his report did not “fully capture the context, nature and substance of the investigation,” spurring “public confusion.”

Here’s how Mueller put it:

The televisions in the White House will be turned to Attorney General William Barr’s testimony before lawmakers today, especially now that he is facing a fresh level of scrutiny over how he portrayed special counsel Robert Mueller’s report. 

Since the news broke last night, White House officials have expressed exasperation by the latest developments — that Mueller sent a letter to Barr expressing concern about his letter summarizing the “principal conclusions” of his report. Officials feel they have been dealing with the Russia investigation for two years, and when there was finally a light at the end of the tunnel, this story will not get out of the headlines. 

President Trump— who has been praising his attorney general privately, comparing him to Jeff Sessions — is also expected to keep an eye on the testimony. 

Trump has nothing on his public schedule until 2:15 p.m. ET today, when he will meet with Republican senators on maritime shipping policies.

Before releasing the redacted Mueller report, Attorney General William Barr claimed at a press conference that its findings were favorable to President Trump.

That’s not what Robert Mueller says. Here is his letter expressing concerns that Barr’s four-page memo didn’t fully capture his report.

According to Rep. Jerry Nadler’s office, the Department of Justice has sent House Judiciary Chairman Nadler the letter special counsel Robert Mueller sent to to Attorney General William Barr.

During his confirmation hearing in January, Attorney General William Barr described a warm relationship with the special counsel Robert Mueller.

Barr described how he told Trump that he was friends with Mueller, referring to him on a first name basis.

Barr and Mueller now: CNN reported yesterday that Mueller expressed concerns about Barr’s four-page summary of his report. In a letter to Barr, Mueller expressed concern that Barr’s four-page letter to Congress summarizing the “principal conclusions” of Mueller’s findings didn’t fully capture his 448-page report, according to a source with knowledge of Mueller’s letter.

Rep. Adam Schiff, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, called on Attorney General William Barr to step down, saying he has been “tainted” by President Trump.

CNN reported yesterday that special counsel Robert Mueller expressed concerns in a letter to Barr that Barr’s four-page memo to Congress summarizing the “principal conclusions” of Mueller’s findings didn’t fully capture his 448-page report, according to a source with knowledge of Mueller’s letter.

“Now, you know, I think in the interest of the department he should step down, but I have no expectation that he will,” Schiff said this morning.

He continued: “What we are seeing, I think, is that anyone that gets close to Donald Trump becomes tainted by that experience and the fundamental conundrum is how do you ethically serve a deeply unethical President?”

Attorney General William Barr is testifying today before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Justice Department veterans celebrated when President Trump’s nominated Barr in December to take over the job as attorney general on a permanent basis after his dismissal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions a month earlier.

Here’s what else you need to know about Barr:

Watch more:

Attorney General William Barr is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee today. Tomorrow, he’s scheduled to answer questions before the House Judiciary Committee — but there’s been some drama over that hearing.

Barr warned House Democrats he wouldn’t show up to Thursday’s hearing if they stuck to the format the chairman has proposed for the questioning, according to a committee source with knowledge of the matter.

House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler told CNN that Barr would not “dictate the format of the Judiciary Committee.”

Asked what he would do if Barr doesn’t comply, Nadler said, “Then we will have to subpoena him, and we will have to use whatever means we can to enforce the subpoena.”

The proposed format: According to the source, Nadler wants all panel members to have one round of questioning of five minutes each, and a subsequent round of questioning of 30 minutes for each side, allowing both parties’ committee counsels to also engage in questioning.

Barr has rejected those proposals for additional rounds of questioning, according to the source. The Justice Department has informed Nadler’s office that Barr doesn’t think the committee counsels should be allowed to question him, the source said, prompting the attorney general to threaten to not show up at all.

Today’s testimony comes just one day after CNN reported that Special counsel Robert Mueller expressed concerns about Attorney General William Barr’s four-page summary of his report.

Here’s what happened: In a letter to Barr, Mueller expressed concern that Barr’s four-page letter to Congress summarizing the “principal conclusions” of Mueller’s findings didn’t fully capture his 448-page report, according to a source with knowledge of Mueller’s letter.

Later, Barr and Mueller spoke by phone and while Mueller didn’t think Barr’s letter was inaccurate, the special counsel believed his report was more nuanced on the obstruction of justice issue, according to Justice Department officials. Mueller was frustrated by media coverage, and wanted more of the report to come out, those officials told CNN.

Barr’s position was he wasn’t going to do so in a piecemeal way, so he was pushing the special counsel’s office to finish the redactions of the full report as soon as possible.

At the same time, senior Justice officials have been puzzled by Mueller’s decision not to reach a conclusion on the obstruction issue and Barr felt he needed to provide finality on the matter as the attorney general.

Justice Department spokesperson Kerri Kupec said in a statement Tuesday that Mueller did not tell Barr that anything in the letter was factually wrong.

Why this matters: Barr is scheduled to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee today in a highly anticipated hearing on the Mueller report.

Special counsel Robert Mueller was seen arriving at his office at 7:39 a.m. ET.

Later this morning, Attorney General William Barr is set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Mueller’s report on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

The testimony comes one day after CNN reported that Mueller expressed concerns in a letter to Barr that Barr’s four-page letter to Congress summarizing the “principal conclusions” of Mueller’s findings didn’t fully capture his 448-page report.

Attorney General William Barr is set to testify today before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the House Judiciary Committee tomorrow.

He will answer questions about special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which was released with redactions on April 18.

Here’s what you need to know about Barr’s testimony: