American Elephants

Attorney General William Barr was scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee tomorrow, but he’s doing just what he said. The Democrat-controlled House Judiciary Committee demanded that when he testifies about the Mueller report, he do so under extraordinary conditions.

One of the conditions was that he be questioned by non-members of the Committee, meaning staff lawyers. Paul Mirengoff, one of the lawyers at Powerline, explained:

According to the Washington Post, the last time committee lawyers questioned a Cabinet official during open hearings was in the mid-1980s when Attorney General Meese testified about Iran-Contra. And Ed Meese was testifying about substantive matters, not about a memo regarding findings made by someone else in a publicly-available document.

Kamala Harris attempted to depend on the public’s lack of understanding of the way things work in Congress. She tore into Mr. Barr for only reporting on what the Mueller report said, and “not examining the underlying evidence” — and how did he dare to not examine the evidence.? What kind of a report was he giving without reporting on the evidence? Trying to give the impression that therefore his report was false.

That is not the Attorney General’s job. His job is to present the report to Congress. The job of examining the evidence  was done by Mr. Mueller and  his attorneys, and Mr. Barrs’ job was to assume that Mueller did his job competently, and report the findings to Congress.

Committee Democrats have nevertheless insisted that Barr agree to be questioned by non-members, he has refused. Unless something dramatic happens, Barr will not testify.

Jerry Nadler, House Judiciary Committee Chairman, called Barr’s decision part of the administration’s “complete stonewalling of Congress, period.” That statement is so wide of the mark as to be a lie.

It’s not “complete stonewalling” when Barr agrees to be questioned for hours by Senate Judiciary Committee members on Wednesday and by House Judiciary Committee members for hours the following day, as Barr was willing to do. It’s not stonewalling at all. Nor is it stonewalling to insist on procedures that have been used, apparently without exception, for more than 30 years when Cabinet members testify publicly before Congress.

Democrats are trying to gin up controversy in order to convince the public that there are discrepancies between Mueller’s report and Barrs’ submission to Congress. They may have already gotten as much mileage as they can out of that “controversy,”and now they will probably try for a new one about Barr refusing to testify. They are milking it for everything they can. But is anyone paying attention?