Attorney General William Barr is doing his best to turn the job of attorney general into some strange combination of shill and personal lawyer for the president. Testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Barr has refused to own his part in mischaracterizing the Mueller report, while lying, and hoping Republicans on the committee can bring up Hillary Clinton’s emails as a sideshow distraction. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island used his time questioning Barr Wednesday morning to try and get Barr to answer questions using logic. He began by working on Barr’s misrepresentation of his knowledge of Bob Mueller’s opinion on the infamous 4-page summary Barr initially released to the public. Specifically, the exchange that Barr had with Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen from Maryland, when asked whether or not Bob Mueller supported Barr’s conclusions on the report.
At a hearing on April 10, Barr said he didn’t "know whether Bob Mueller supported my conclusion." Legal representatives would call that lying with your pants on fire. But he did, so Sen. Whitehouse decides to just ask the logic surrounding the timeline of Barr’s reading of two Mueller letters AND in a conversation with Mueller, concerning the characterization of the 400-page report.
Senator Whitehouse: When did you have the conversation with Bob Mueller that letterer?
Atty. Gen. Barr: On the 28th [April].
Sen Whitehouse: Same day you read it? When did you first learn of The New York Times and Washington Post stories that would make the existence of this letter public, the ones that came out last night?
Atty. Gen. Barr: I think it could have been yesterday but i'm not sure.
Barr continues to act like he doesn’t understand how questions and answers work, until Sen. Whitehouse finally gets him to say he released the Mueller letter Wednesday morning. Over a month after receiving it and weeks after lying about it to Senator Van Hollen.
Sen. Whitehouse: Would you concede you had an opportunity to make this letter public on April 4, when Representative Crist asked you a very related question?
Atty. Gen. Barr: I don't know what you mean by “related question.” It seems to me it would be a different question.
Sen. Whitehouse’s hair, having been sufficiently blown back by that tornado of hot wind, responds. He can’t call Barr a liar so instead he says he’s a liar.
Sen. Whitehouse: I can't follow that down the road. That's a masterful hair-splitting. I mean boy, that's some masterful hair-splitting.
Point made.