Welcome to our TOPLive coverage of U.S. Attorney General William Barr's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Barr will face new scrutiny from lawmakers after a revelation surfaced that he misrepresented Mueller’s findings about whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice.
The hearing is set to begin at 10 a.m. ET. We'll get underway at 9:50 a.m. Join us for the latest news and analysis. For the full lineup of TOPLive events, please visit TLIV.
Barr at a House Subcommittee hearing April 10. Photographer: Anna Moneymaker/Bloomberg
Hi, I'm Billy House, a congressional reporter with Bloomberg News in DC and along with legal editor Joe Schneider, we'll walk you through today's hearing.
We'll be covering Attorney General William Barr's appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, in what promises to deliver some intense questioning about his handling of the roll-out of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia report.
News reports Tuesday night that Mueller had contacted Barr to express his displeasure after Barr issued a four-page letter in March characterizing the main findings of Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 will deliver even more heat on Barr from panel Democrats.
Barr's testimony comes on the heels of blockbuster reports from the Washington Post and New York Times last night that Mueller complained in a March 26 letter to Barr that the attorney general's summary of his office's work and conclusions misrepresented those findings and created public confusion.
The summary ``did not fully capture the context, nature and substance of this office's work and conclusions,'' Mueller wrote according to the Washington Post.
A copy of Barr's letter to Congress. Photographer: Alex Wroblewski/Bloomberg
Even before things get started in the Senate, House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff said today that Barr has "deliberately" misled Congress and the American public and that he should resign.
Appearing on "CBS This Morning," Democrat Schiff pointed to Barr denying knowing last month to a House panel of how Special Counsel Robert Mueller felt about his summary of the Mueller's Russia report.
"He knew exactly what he was being asked by Congress and he knew his answer was false. There's no sugar coating this. He should step down," said Schiff.
Democratic Policy and Communications Committee Chair David
Cicilline, a House Judiciary Democrat from Rhode has now joined Schiff in calling for the attorney general to resign. “Bill Barr needs to resign," says Cicilline in a statement. "He lied under oath to Congress. That cannot be tolerated. He has to go.”
Despite the largely friendly Republican control of the Senate committee, Barr is probably going to be in the cross-hairs of three Democratic presidential candidates on the panel -- Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker and Kamala Harris.
Klobuchar told Politico she'd question Barr about Russian interference in the election and why the Justice Department isn't helping in getting the Secure Election Act passed, referring to the bipartisan legislation to secure elections from cybersecurity threats.
She said she'd also pursue questions about obstruction of justice.
Senator Richard Blumenthal told Politico Barr would have to explain how he announced the report -- having left out some parts that were incriminatory of the president.
``His conclusion after reading that report was laughable,'' Blumenthal said.
Today's hearing is just part 1: Barr is scheduled to appear on Thursday before the Democratic-led House Judiciary Committee.
But disagreements on the ground rules for that hearing were continuing. The Justice Department has been objecting to Barr being questioned by the panel’s staff lawyers rather than just lawmakers.
Other Republicans are likely to follow suit, seeking more information about why the FBI began its probe of Trump's campaign and the role a dossier produced by former British spy Christopher Steele played in the probe's genesis.
When or if Mueller himself will testify about his report to either chamber remains uncertain. House Judiciary chair Nadler has requested that to occur, but no date has been set.
Robert Mueller. Photographer: Alex Wong/Getty Images
The Justice Department has released a March 27 letter from Mueller to Barr that requested he release of the Mueller team's own summaries of the Mueller report's conclusions.
Mueller writes to Barr that the initial 4-page letter Barr sent to Congress March 24 and released to the public "did not fully capture the nature, and substance of the Office's work and conclusions." It complains this has led to "public confusion about critical aspects of our investigation."
Barr and Mueller have reportedly been friends for decades. But the letter just released by the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee is far from friendly, and highly critical of Barr for not releasing the executive summaries Mueller provided him. It's also unusual for Mueller to put his complaints in writing, creating a paper trail he likely knew would become public at some point,
Today's hearing at least presents Barr with a friendlier, Republican-led Senate panel from which to take questions, but a second hearing on Thursday before the Democratic-led House Judiciary Committee looms. That committee is meeting this morning to set the ground-rules for its questioning. Also, House Judiciary subpoena for the full, unredacted Mueller report with all of its underlying documents comes due today.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham kicks us off. He's thanking Barr for appearing. "Here's the good news; here's the Mueller report. You can read it for yourselves," he said.
Graham said he's also read some of the redacted parts, and that those did not change any of his view of the conclusions.
``The Russians did it,'' Graham says about interference in the election. ``It wasn't some 400-pound guy,'' he says, in reference for Trump's past explanation of who the culprit may have been. Graham says the Russians are still doing it.
"You have to have specific intent to obstruct justice. If there’s no underlying crime, it’s pretty hard to figure out what intent might be...the president never did anything to stop Mueller from doing his job...So the new argument by Democrats is that there was attempted obstruction, we’ll see if that makes any sense. To me it doesn’t.”
Graham is now turning his attention to the early months of the Russia investigation -- part of his and other Republicans' promises to investigate the investigators who they accuse of having had a bias in favor of Hillary Clinton over Trump.
He is now reading some of the text messages in 2016 between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, which appear to show antagonism against Trump.
He says these are the people who launched the counter-intelligence investigation that became the probe into any connections between Russian operatives and the Trump campaign.
Meanwhile, he complains that they dropped the investigation of Clinton's use of private email server.
Graham is now questioning the thoroughness of the Clinton email investigation, but adds:
"The bottom line is we're about to hear from Mr. Barr the results of a 2 year investigation into the Trump campaign...but says he has read the report, and "For me, it is over."
Feinstein, a Democrat from California, raises the issue of Mueller's letter to Barr raising concerns about his characterizations of the report in his four-page summary, and in the press conference 90 minutes before the report was released.
