BREAKING NEWS: 'He lied to Congress!' Nancy Pelosi accuses Bill Barr of a crime claiming he hid Mueller contact from House committee – but Trump's AG will blame a DEMOCRAT for asking the wrong question
- Nancy Pelosi says Bill Barr lied to Congress, which is a crime
- Barr testified in April that he didn't know why some members of Mueller's team were frustrated by the slow release of their final report
- Mueller had sent Barr a letter more than a week earlier complaining about the pace of things
- Justice Department official tells DailyMail.com that Barr will stick to his guns and say he was asked the wrong question – about Mueller's team, not Mueller himself
- Barr refused to show up and testify in a House hearing on Thursday
- Democrats held an abbreviated session and brought a bucket of KFC and a toy chicken to paint him as a coward
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed Thursday in a dramatic press conference that Attorney General Bill Barr committed a crime in sworn testimony last month, ratcheting up the latest war of words to paralyze Washington in the Trump era.
'He lied to Congress. He lied to Congress. If anybody else did that, it would be considered a crime,' Pelosi told reporters. 'Nobody is above the law. Not the President of the United States and not the attorney general.'
Barr testified April 9 in a House hearing that 'no, I don't' know why some members of special Counsel Robert Mueller's team were frustrated by the nature of what he released to Congress on March 24.
With this week's revelation of a March 27 letter in which Mueller told Barr he was displeased with how little material had been made public, that statement appears to have given Democrats a new weapon. Barr, however, plans to stick to his guns, according to a Justice Department official.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi ratcheted up Washington's partisan acrimony on Thursday, claiming Attorney General Bill Barr committed a crime in testimony before Congress
Barr told a House panel in April that he didn't know why some members of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team were frustrated by how little information he had released to lawmakers; he said no, despite getting a letter weeks earlier with grips from Mueller himself
During a House Appropriations Committee, Florida Democratic Rep. asked: 'Reports have emerged recently, general, that members of the Special Counsel's team are frustrated at some level with the limited information included in your March 24th letter, that it does not adequately or accurately necessarily portray the report's findings. Do you know what they're referencing with that?”
Barr said he didn't. He added: 'I suspect that they probably wanted more put out, but in my view, I was not interested in putting out summaries or trying to summarize.'
A DOJ official predicted on Thursday that Barr will stand by his claim that Crist's question was poorly worded since it asked about Mueller's team of lawyers and not the special counsel himself.
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'Crist asked it wrong. AG Barr did what good witnesses do: he didn't answer a question that wasn't asked,' the official told DailyMail.com.
'When a prosecutor asks you if you know what time it is, you don't tell him it's 12:30. If you know, the answer is yes. You don't volunteer anything. We all learn that in law school.'
Officially, a Justice Department spokesperson issued a terse statement: 'Speaker Pelosi's baseless attack on the Attorney General is reckless, irresponsible and false.'
The March 27 letter from Mueller to Barr came three days after Barr released his four-page top-line results to a bipartisan quartet of congressional leaders from both judiciary committees.
Florida Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist asked the question during an April 9 hearing; he said Wednesday that Barr should resign, joining a growing chorus of Democrats looking to make hay from a potential misstep by President Donald Trump's newest cabinet member
He wrote that Barr's limited disclosures had resulted in 'public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigation.'
Barr said Wednesday that he decided against releasing the Mueller report 'piecemeal,' describing the report as 'my baby' at the point it hit his desk.
He also described the letter as 'a bit snitty,' and suggested someone on Mueller's staff wrote it.
Pelosi's esclation came hours after House Judiciary Committee Democrats briefly gaveled in a hearing where Barr had expected to testify for a second day in a row, after sitting for an extended Senate grilling on Wednesday.
Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler lectured the Trump administration, facing an empty chair, while other Democrats ate KFC and displayed a plastic chicken to frame Barr as a coward.
Tennessee Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen brought the bucket of Original Recipe, eating a piece at 9:00 in the morning while reporters gawked and camera shutters clicked. The food ended its brief cameo on the witness table, along with a ceramic chicken, next to what would have been Barr's name placard.
Nadler opted to convene the hearing rather than waste a made-for-TV tableau after Barr refused to show up, with the Justice Department citing Nadler's demand that staff attorneys should be able to question him in addition to elected lawmakers.
'Given the Attorney General’s lack of candor before other congressional committees,' Nadler said in an opening statement, referring to Barr's hours-long grilling Wednesday on the Senate side ofthe Capitol, 'I believe my colleagues and I were right to insist on the extended questioning.'
Ranking Republican Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia hit the roof, saying Democrats were treating Barr as a proxy for Trump because they 'can't' or 'don't want' to publicly impeach him.
Democrats in the House Judiciary Committee held an abbriviated hearing on Thursday with a plastic chicken standing in for Attorney General Bill Barr, who refused to attend because the chairman demanded he submit himself to questions from staff lawyers in addition to lawmakers
Hearing organizers arranged a bipartisan tableau facing an empty chair on Thursday
House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler slammed Barr for refusing to appear, and threatened the Justice Department with action for refusing to turn over an unredacted copy of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russia election interference
Barr, who spent hours testifying in a Senate hearing on Wednesday and was seen leaving his house Thursday, can't release an unredacted copy of the report to anyone, including Congress, because federal law requires him to protect material related to grand juries; all the other redactions have been uncovered in a copy made available to congressional leaders from both parties
'The stunt and the circus continues over here,' he boomed.
'They wanted to have a staff member ask questions?' Collins asked. 'If that staff member wants to ask questions so desperately, run for Congress! Put a pin on. Find a committee.'
Nadler quickly gaveled the hearing to a close, ignoring other Republicans' demands for parliamentary questions about the event's format and whether they would have a chance to speak.
Pelosi wouldn't speculate on Thursday about what Nadler might do next.
'The committee will act upon how it will proceed,' she said in a cryptic forecast.
'How sad it is for us to see the top law enforcement officer in our country misrepresenting, withholding the truth from the Congress of the United States,' she said.
Crist said late Weddnesday that Barr was parsing words and should have understood the spirit of the question he asked on April 9.
'He not only misled the House of Representatives but also the United States Senate. When you’re doing that then you’re lying to the American people and if the chief legal officer of the United States is willing to do that, that erodes confidence in our institutions. That’s just unacceptable,' he said.
Crist added that Barr should resign.
