Kamala Harris Guts Barr Like a Fish, Leaves Him Flopping on the Deck

By Bess Levin, Vanity Fair

02 May 19

It took just eight minutes for Harris to destroy the attorney general’s “no obstruction” story.

magine: you’re the Attorney General of the United States and have a big decision to make, in this case whether or not to charge the president with obstructing justice. The special counsel has written an exhaustive report citing numerous situations that sure sound like obstruction attempts—asking the White House counsel to lie to investigators, for instance—and it appears the only reason they weren’t successful is because staffers refused to do the Big Guy’s bidding, apparently unaware of how the mafia is supposed to operate. No, you’ve decided, you’re not going to charge the POTUS with a crime—a conclusion that, deep down inside, you know you made months prior. Instead, you’re going to tell the American public that “the evidence developed during the Special Counsel's investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.” Should be an open-and-shut case but, on the off chance anyone asks, it would probably be a good idea to actually read the underlying evidence you claimed wasn’t robust enough to charge the president, right? Actually, in the case of one William Barr, the answer is somehow wrong-o!

Noting that the special counsel’s report contained “a great deal of evidence,” including witnesses’ notes and memos, congressional testimony, interviews, and former F.B.I. director James Comey’s memos, Senator Kamala Harris asked Barr during his congressional hearing on Wednesday, “In reaching your conclusion, did you personally review all of the underlying evidence?” Again, one would have expected the answer to be Of course, I did! What kind of cockamamie question is that? but, somehow, it wasn’t! “No,” Barr told the former prosecutor. “We accepted the statements in the report as factual record, we did not go underneath it to see whether or not they were accurate.” What about departed Deputy A.G. Rod Rosenstein, Harris wondered. How ‘bout that guy? Did he “review the underlying evidence . . . that supports the conclusions in the report?” Again, the answer was no.

“Did anyone in your executive office review the evidence supporting the report,” Harris asked, as Cory Booker struggled to conceal his smile watching the senator from California nail Barr to the wall. “No,” Barr answered. “Yet you represented to the America public that the evidence was not ‘sufficient to support an obstruction of justice offense?’” Harris pressed.

Backed into a corner, Barr attempted to A.G.-splain to Harris—who, incidentally, served as the Attorney General of California for six years—how all this works and why it’s completely absurd to expect him to have looked at all the evidence before deciding there wasn’t enough of it to charge Donald Trump. “This is not a mysterious process,” Barr said. “In the Department of Justice we have [prosecution] memos every day coming and we don’t go and look at the underlying evidence.” To which Harris responded, effectively, you’re fucking kidding me, right?

“As the Attorney General, you run the U.S. Department of Justice. If in any U.S. attorneys office around the country the head of that office, when being asked to make a critical decision, about in this case the person who holds the highest office in the land, and whether or not that person committed a crime, would you accept them recommending a charging decision to you if they had not reviewed the evidence?” To which Barr essentially responded, that’s above my pay grade.

“That’s a question for Bob Mueller,” he said. “He’s the U.S. attorney, he’s the one who presents the report.”

“But you made the charging decision, sir.”

“What, uh—”

“You made the decision not to charge the president.”

“In a [prosecution] memo—”

“You said it was your ‘baby,’ what did you mean by that?”

“It was my baby to decide whether or not to disclose it to the public.”

“And who had the power to make the decision about whether or not the evidence was sufficient to make a determination of whether there had been an obstruction of justice.”

At this point, Barr tried his hardest to say “mine” without actually saying “mine.”

“Prosecution memos go up to the supervisor, in this case the A.G.”—note, this is Barr—“and the deputy A.G. who decide on the final decision and that is based on the memo as represented by the U.S. attorney’s office.”

“I think you’ve made it clear that you have not looked at the evidence and we can move on.”

Elsewhere during Harris’s time, she got Barr to effectively admit that Trump has asked him to investigate his enemies, in a delightful exchange in which half of the Attorney General’s responses were stutters, umms, and uhhs.

Harris: Has the president or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested you open an investigation into anyone?

Barr: Um, I wouldn’t, uh—

Harris: Yes or no?

Barr: Could you repeat that question?

Harris: Has the president or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested you open an investigation into anyone? Yes or no please, sir.

Barr: Uh, the president or anyone else—

Harris: It seems you’d remember something like that and be able to tell us.

Barr: I’m trying to grapple with the word “suggest”. . . there have been discussions of matters out there that . . . they have not asked me to open an investigation but . . .

Harris: Perhaps they’ve suggested?

Barr: I wouldn’t say suggested—

Harris: Hinted?

Barr: I don’t know.

Harris: Inferred?

Barr: I . . . don’t know.