Attorney General William Barr’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee was supposed to be about the Mueller report—it was right there in the title of the hearing—and fully 50 percent of the time really was spent on that topic. The 50 percent where Democrats were asking the questions. Republicans, as expected, found the topic decidedly uninteresting, and found any number of other things to discuss with Barr. Including some topics so off the wall that not even Barr knew how to respond.
BarR Topping
Kamala Harris hits the “puree” button
She slices. She dices. She asks damn hard questions and doesn’t allow weak-assed answers. Hurricane Kamala came straight at Barr with questions that didn’t just knock him off his pat answers on the Mueller report, but also put him in pure sputter mode. You made that decision very quickly there Mr. Barr. Uh-huh. A very important decision. Yeah. Did you bother to read the evidence before making the most consequential prosecutorial decision of your entire career? Uh … Uh …. No. And has Donald Trump ordered or suggested that you investigate political opponents? Um, well, ah. … The answer to this is, of course, yes. Trump spends half of his executive time urging investigations of everyone not named Trump.
Masterful Hairsplitting
Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse was one of several Democrats who tried to get Barr to own up to the simple fact that he lied to the House Oversight Committee. In his appearance there, Barr said he didn’t know what Mueller thought of his summary/not-a-summary to Congress. Only weeks before that appearance, Mueller sent Barr a letter making it very clear what he thought. The very fact that Robert Mueller put it down on paper was the attorney version of firing a cannon across Barr’s extra-wide bow. But no matter how Whitehouse asked, Barr found a new way to claim he hadn’t been talking about what he was talking about. It wasn’t about Mueller, it was about “people in the special counsel’s office” not including Mueller. It wasn’t about his decision, it was about … something else. Take your pick. Whitehouse produced the phrase “masterful hairsplitting.” Which is his way of saying ugly-assed lies.
Mazie Hirono, for the win
"Mr. Barr, now the American people know that you are no different from Rudy Giuliani or Kellyanne Conway or any of the other people who sacrificed their once decent reputation for the grifter and liar who sits in the Oval Office.” Mic drop. Even better was how Lindsey Graham swooned, swooned, I say. You might think Hirono had just said “Trump is a fucking idiot.” But no. That was Graham. Hirono’s high-speed harangue didn’t leave Barr a lot of room to respond … by design. And the most important thing that Hirono said clearly is the key. “You lied to Congress.” He did. Get ‘em.
There are notes
Under questioning by Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Barr started off by trying to tough out his lies about his phone conversation with Mueller by claiming he had witnesses. Rosenstein was there! It was on speakerphone! But it took about two minutes for Blumenthal to move on to who else was there. Mumble, mumble, Barr was not saying. And did anyone take notes? Yes, Barr admitted, someone had. Would Barr give those notes to Congress? No, he said. Why should he? Because … these are the things subpoenas are made of, Mr. Barr. They might have mentioned that in law school. After spending a day obviously mischaracterizing everything about his talk with Mueller, Barr admitted there were witnesses and notes. This is the kind of stupid statement on the stand that comes with dum-dum-DUH music in any courtroom drama. Petard. Hoist.
bArrly there
Ben Sasse
There was one Republican who didn’t immediately demand that the FBI agents begin immediately forming up in lines and shooting one another. Ben Sasse genuinely expressed concern about election integrity and the interference of foreign governments. Like Russia. And that might have meant something, had Sasse not gone on to call Russia’s actions in 2016 “clumsy,” insist that they were nothing more than what it had done in the past, and devote most of his time to how bad things were going to be when China got in the game. Because boy, China, they’re gonna be good at this. Not like Russia, which you can just ignore. China is the new 400-pound basement dweller.
Low Barr
But her emails!
Committee chairman Lindsey Graham set the pace for Barr’s appearance on Wednesday with a jaw-dropping movie to turn the hearing into a discussion of Hillary Clinton’s emails. No. Seriously. It had been expected that Republicans would spend their time throwing lifelines to Barr and huffing about the Illegal Witch Hunt™, but the idea that they would rewind all the way to 2016 and actually open the hearing by talking about Hillary’s “personal server” and bringing up the name of a of technician who had used a free program to clean up old files was just … so damn Lindsey.
It wasn’t me, it was the media
Faced with the public release of the letter from Mueller—a letter Barr clearly never intended to see the light of day—Barr claimed that he called up Mueller and stared the conversation with “What’s up with the letter, Bob.” Then Barr claimed that Mueller’s concern had nothing to do with Barr’s letter and everything to do with the media. One: Mueller’s letter is unequivocal that his problem is with Barr, not CNN (or Daily Kos). Two: There is no way in hell that Barr spoke to Mueller with the kind of disrespect he used when speaking about the (there are no) former Marine over the phone, much less face to face. Barr’s claim to have tough-talked Mueller on the phone was just one example of the times he sneered at the former FBI director during the day. It would seem as if Barr was burning down his supposed friendship with Mueller on the same bonfire as his reputation, but it seems clear he already torched that one.
Campaign Action
Graham 2018 f-bombs Graham 2016
The entire performance of Lindsey Graham was notable mostly for its pure silliness, but it may have hit its low-low point when Graham read a series of text messages between FBI agent Peter Strzok and friend-with-benefits Lisa Page. That included Graham actually opening the hearing by reading a text that f-bombed Donald Trump for his stupidity. But the genuinely humorous part of this was that the things that Graham was saying about the exchanges, that took place in 2016, was exactly what Graham was saying about Trump in 2016. "I'm not going to try to get into the mind of Donald Trump because I don't think there's a whole lot of space there. I think he's a kook. I think he's crazy. I think he's unfit for office." —Lindsey Graham, February 17, 2016. He didn’t read that one. But someone should have.
The FBI is great, but …
The universal position of Republicans is that they love the FBI. Except the leadership. And the agents. And the attorneys. And what they’re investigating. And how they decide things. And … stuff. But boy, they sure do love their agent-free, leadership-free, investigation-free FBI! The low point of this low-point surely came when Marsha Blackburn delivered a lecture taken from the back cover of some paperback she skimmed at the airport about the FBI’s “culture.”
Spying is just fine
William Barr claims that he never meant anything when he said that the FBI had spied on the Trump campaign. Spying is “a good English word.” I spy. You spy. We all spy … a massive liar.
Ted Cruz
Was there.
Josh Hawley
That’s all, just Josh Hawley. Missouri’s freshman senator was so far over in the land of Q, that he genuinely said that the reason there was a Russian investigation at all was because Peter Strzok did not like the way Trump supporters “smelled.” It was a statement so inane that neither Barr nor Hawley’s fellow Republicans knew how to respond. Don’t worry, Josh. There will always be room for you on InfoWars, right between segments on black helicopters and the special update on lizard men.
This doesn’t even come close to getting at everything. There was Barr’s repeated attempts to play Gollum to the Mueller report’s ring—“my baby.” And his continuing attempts to demean Mueller and his role in the process. There was Barr’s claim that he had real problems with the actions of James Comey, when he wrote a op-ed at the time defending Comey. The whole appearance was the ceremonial burning of William Barr’s last shreds of respectability. There was the way that Barr went out of his way to not compliment the members of Barr’s team, even when Republicans were trying to make a point that the investigation was conducted by the best—because at this point Barr is clearly trying to demean the entire special counsel team from Mueller on down. There was … a lot of stuff.
Now Barr gets roasted. And not the funny ha-ha kind of roast.
