Attorney General William Barr denied accusations that he repositioned the Justice Department to favor President Trump during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday in Washington.
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesAttorney General William Barr on Tuesday rejected accusations that he is working to politically boost President Trump by deploying federal agents in Portland, Ore., and Washington, D.C., in response to protests over racial injustice and through his personal intervention in criminal cases involving the president’s allies.
In his first congressional appearance in more than a year, Mr. Barr said the federal response was needed to confront violent demonstrators and fight crime in cities where local officials had done little to keep their streets and federal property safe.
“What unfolds nightly around the courthouse cannot reasonably be called a protest; it is, by any objective measure, an assault on the government of the United States,” Mr. Barr said, referring to clashes in Portland, which has become the latest flashpoint in nationwide protests over the May killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
He also defended the forceful removal of protesters near the White House, where officers used smoke bombs and other munitions after Mr. Barr ordered them to clear the area before an appearance by Mr. Trump in June. The attorney general said protesters had grown unruly and began throwing objects at the law enforcement officers.
Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.) questioning William Barr during a Capitol Hill hearing on Tuesday in Washington.
Photo: Matt McClain/Press PoolMr. Barr at times appeared a bystander amid the partisan jousting in the almost five-hour hearing that offered a preview to the coming 2020 presidential election.
Republicans, echoing Mr. Trump’s law-and-order campaign platform, praised Mr. Barr as a defender of the rule-of-law seeking to restore order both on the streets and inside the Justice Department after investigations consumed much of Mr. Trump’s first two years in office.
Democrats countered with questions about racial inequities in the criminal justice system and sought to portray Mr. Barr as the president’s enabler who had escalated confrontations with protesters to manufacture scenes of chaos.
Both parties played video clips of protests to illustrate their competing points. Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the committee’s ranking Republican, aired several minutes of footage of demonstrators burning property and looting stories. Rep. David Cicilline, (D., R.I.) later showed a montage of peaceful protesters.
“The president wants footage for his campaign ads, and you appear to be serving it up to him as ordered,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.), the Judiciary Committee chairman, said of Mr. Barr. “You have aided and abetted the worst failings of the president.”
Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R., Pa.), countered, “So I think this political experiment has shown us that the liberal, social justice, Democrat-style governments fail.”
For the most part, Mr. Barr’s responses were calm and measured, even as Democrats repeatedly cut him off. But the attorney general did raise his voice after repeated questions about his personal intervention in criminal cases involving Mr. Trump’s allies.
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In one exchange, Mr. Barr defended his decision to seek a lesser sentence for longtime informal Trump adviser Roger Stone. Mr. Barr overruled career prosecutors who had recommended Mr. Stone receive seven to nine years in prison, a request aligned with sentencing guidelines for Mr. Stone’s conviction for lying to Congress and witness tampering.
Mr. Barr said he believed Mr. Stone should serve time but a shorter stint. A judge ultimately agreed with Mr. Barr’s conclusion and sentenced him to 40 months in prison, which Mr. Trump this month commuted.
“You think the American people don’t understand that you were carrying out Trump’s wishes?” Rep. Hank Johnson, (D., Ga.), said, noting that the president had tweeted about the sentencing recommendation the same day it was reduced.
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Raising his voice, Mr. Barr replied, “Let me ask you, do you think it’s fair for a 67-year-old man to be sent to prison for seven to nine years?”
He also defended his decision to drop the criminal case against Mr. Trump’s former national security adviserMichael Flynn, who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but later accused agents of trying to set him up. The department said it wasn’t convinced prosecutors could prove the case against Mr. Flynn. Mr. Barr said that his decisions hadn’t been influenced by the White House or anyone else.
In his first appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, Democrats raised a range of issues. They pressed Mr. Barr on his handling of coronavirus outbreaks in prisons and his warning of widespread voter fraud, which Democrats worry will limit access at the ballot box. Rep. Cedric Richmond, (D., La.) asked him if he believed the 2020 election would be rigged.
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“I have no reason to think it will be,” Mr. Barr said. On further questioning he also said he believed there is a “high risk” that mail-in voting will lead to massive voter fraud, echoing Mr. Trump’s unfounded claim. He didn’t elaborate.
Republicans accused Democrats of targeting Mr. Barr because of his scrutiny of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, which he has long criticized. The Justice Department’s inspector general found a number of errors in the agency’s pursuit of a wiretap of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, and Mr. Barr has suggested without elaborating that his own investigation has found other missteps.
Republicans pressed him for more details about an investigation being conducted by Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham into the origins of the Russia investigation and praised him for appointing another federal prosecutor to review other issues in conjunction with that inquiry.
“Mr. Attorney General, I want to thank you for having the courage to say we’re going to get the politics out of the Department of Justice that was there in the previous administration,” Mr. Jordan said.
Write to Sadie Gurman at sadie.gurman@wsj.com
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