michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” Today: In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General William Barr defended his handling of the Mueller report, saying he did not misrepresent its findings. My colleague Nick Fandos spent the day in the hearing room. It’s Thursday, May 2.

nicholas fandos

So this story starts a couple of weeks ago, when Bill Barr, after much anticipation, releases the 448-page Mueller report.

archived recording (william barr) At 11:00 this morning, I’m going to transmit copies of the public version to the chairman and ranking members of the Senate and House Judiciary Committee.

nicholas fandos

Congress is out on recess, scattered all over the country, and scrambles to figure out what to do next. But there’s one clear expectation, which is, whatever happens now, the Justice Department has spoken. And it’s up to Congress to decide whether or not President Trump will face any sort of consequences for the behavior that was outlined in great detail by Bob Mueller.

archived recording (jerrold nadler) That is why I have formally requested that Special Counsel Mueller testify before the House Judiciary Committee as soon as possible.

nicholas fandos

So immediately, we see Democrats, who control the House, talk about a number of witnesses that they want to call. They issue a subpoena the next day for the full Mueller report and all the evidence underlying it —

archived recording They want the entire unedited report, not the redacted version, sent to them by Attorney General William Barr.

nicholas fandos

— because they want to start recreating and scrutinizing the evidence themselves. And they very quickly start to call a number of witnesses.

archived recording (donald trump) There was no collusion with Russia.

nicholas fandos

Over at the White House, it’s a whole other story.

archived recording (donald trump) It was a complete and total exoneration.

nicholas fandos

And they basically say, this is the end of the investigation.

archived recording (sarah sanders) So that makes it a complete and total exoneration. I don’t know any other way to look at it.

nicholas fandos

We’re not going to let you talk to these witnesses. We’re not going to voluntarily produce this evidence that you want. Don McGahn, don’t adhere to the subpoena, they say.

archived recording (donald trump) I say it’s enough.

nicholas fandos

President Trump vows to block all subpoenas, not just for this investigation, but anything that House Democrats are trying to scrutinize of his administration. They’re basically trying to put a full stop to this story.

archived recording (donald trump) Get back to infrastructure, get back to cutting taxes, get back to lowering drug prices. That’s what — really, that’s what we should be doing.

nicholas fandos

So now all of the sudden, Democrats are finding themselves wrestling not just with the obstruction that Bob Mueller detailed in his 448-page report, they’re starting to look around them and say, hey, the president is obstructing us, he’s obstructing Congress, another branch of government, just as he did the Department of Justice. And that’s serious. And in the middle of that, the one thing that they’ve got on the books, the one thing they can count on, is that we would have Bill Barr facing 11 Democrats, 13 Republicans in the Senate, Wednesday morning at 10:00 a.m.

archived recording The Washington Post is breaking a major story as we speak. Special Counsel Robert Mueller told Attorney General William Barr that the depiction of his findings failed to capture context, nature and substance of his probe.

nicholas fandos

And then, on Tuesday night, just hours before the senators are ready to convene for this hearing, The New York Times and The Washington Post report the existence of a letter.

archived recording Expressed his concerns in a letter to William Barr after the attorney general publicized Mueller’s principal conclusions. Wow.

nicholas fandos

This was the four-page letter that Bill Barr put out at the very beginning, stating that the special counsel had not found evidence of a criminal conspiracy or obstruction of justice. And what Bob Mueller was writing to say is, your four pages did not adequately represent what our investigation found. And that there appeared to be significant public confusion based on that four-page letter that you put out. And he makes an ask of Barr that he put out executive summaries and introductions that were written by the special counsel’s team and had been reviewed for redactions already, and release those to the public so they can see more evidence right away.

michael barbaro

And why is this so significant, especially given the timing of when this letter becomes public?

nicholas fandos

So the letter, just hours before senators are going to have to ask questions, essentially confirmed something that Democrats have been fearful of and suspicious of for weeks now, which was there was a gulf between Bob Mueller and Bill Barr, and that Bill Barr kind of stepped into the void, spoke for the Mueller investigation, and didn’t do so fairly.

michael barbaro

So this is kind of a stunning thing for Robert Mueller, who we think of as this kind of mute legal figure, to do.

nicholas fandos

We have heard nothing publicly from Bob Mueller. He has not spoken a word. He hasn’t testified. He didn’t give a press conference. And so for him to write a letter, to memorialize in writing, to his boss, to Bill Barr, his dissatisfaction with his process, his concerns about it, underscores the significance of his concern and the stakes surrounding who’s speaking for the investigation.

michael barbaro

O.K., so, Nick, tell me about this hearing with Bill Barr once it actually gets started.

nicholas fandos

So Bill Barr stands, the cameras click. He puts up his right hand.

archived recording (lindsey graham) Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you’re about to give this committee is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God? archived recording (william barr) Yes.

nicholas fandos

And then he sits down.

archived recording (william barr) Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member Feinstein, members of the committee.

nicholas fandos

In the same seat that just a few months ago he pledged to senators that he would let the Mueller investigation finish and that he would make its conclusions as public as he possibly could.

archived recording (william barr) As you see, Bob Mueller was allowed to complete his work as he saw fit.

nicholas fandos

And he said, look, I have done what I said I was going to do.

archived recording (william barr) I told this committee that I intended to exercise whatever discretion I had to make as much of the report available.

nicholas fandos

And then he begins to shade into a kind of preemptive defense of himself.

archived recording (william barr) Thursday morning I received a letter from Bob, the letter that’s just been put into the record.

nicholas fandos

He says, essentially, I was surprised to receive this. I got it out of the blue. I thought I was acting, and I think I did act, in a transparent, timely way.

archived recording (william barr) I was not interested in putting out summaries. And I wasn’t going to put out the report piecemeal. I wanted to get the whole report out.

michael barbaro

So basically, Barr is saying to these senators, I know you’re about to ask me about this letter that Robert Mueller wrote to me, and I’m here to tell you that I had very good reasons to make the decisions I did. And Bob Mueller might be a great guy, but on this point, he’s wrong.

nicholas fandos

That’s right.

archived recording (william barr) So I’ll end my statement there, Mr. Chairman, and glad to take any questions. archived recording (lindsey graham) Thank you very much.

michael barbaro

And then it’s the senators’ turn. So what did they say?

nicholas fandos

So, they make clear very quickly that there are going to be two competing stories.

archived recording (lindsey graham) So what have we learned from this report?

nicholas fandos

On the one side are the Republicans —

archived recording (lindsey graham) After all this time and all this money, Mr. Mueller and his team concluded there was no collusion.

nicholas fandos

— who say there was no collusion.

archived recording (lindsey graham) As to obstruction of justice, Mr. Mueller left it to Mr. Barr to decide. After two years and all this time, he said, Mr. Barr, you decide. Mr. Barr did.

nicholas fandos

There was no obstruction.

archived recording (lindsey graham) I appreciate very much what Mr. Mueller did for the country. I have read most of the report.

nicholas fandos

This investigation —

archived recording (lindsey graham) Is over.

nicholas fandos

— is over.

archived recording (lindsey graham) Senator Feinstein —

nicholas fandos

The Democrats have a very different story.

archived recording (dianne feinstein) Contrary to the declarations of the total and complete exoneration, the special counsel’s report contains substantial evidence of misconduct.

nicholas fandos

They believe that Mr. Barr has been acting as a partisan actor, and they were out to prove it.

archived recording (dianne feinstein) You concluded, and I quote, “that the evidence is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction of justice offense,” end quote. However, Special Counsel Mueller methodically outlines 10 episodes, some continuing multiple actions by the president to mislead the American people.

nicholas fandos

And they try and build a case that this investigation cannot end —

archived recording (dianne feinstein) Congress has both the constitutional duty and the authority to investigate the serious findings contained in the Mueller report.

nicholas fandos

— that the rule of law is at stake, that big ideas like the separation of powers and the accountability of the presidency hang in the balance, and that to stop an investigation now would be an abdication of Congress’s authority.

archived recording (dianne feinstein) Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

michael barbaro

So how exactly are these two sides on this committee making their cases here? Let’s start with the Republicans.

nicholas fandos

So Republican senator after Republican senator seemed to zoom, in most cases, first directly towards the fact that, as Barr made very clear, and as he decided in the case of obstruction, the president did not break a law.

archived recording (lindsey graham) Very quickly, give us your reasoning why you think it would be inappropriate to proceed forward on obstruction of justice in this case. archived recording (william barr) Well, generally speaking, an obstruction case typically has two aspects to it. One, there’s usually an underlying criminality. archived recording (lindsey graham) Let’s stop right there. archived recording (william barr) Yeah. archived recording (lindsey graham) Was there an underlying crime here? archived recording (william barr) No.

nicholas fandos

Many of them, at the same time, asked Mr. Barr about questions that have been a hobbyhorse of the president and of certain Republicans for quite a while now, which is what about these allegations that they were spying on the campaign?

charles grassley Have you already tasked any staff to look into whether spying by the F.B.I. and other agencies on the Trump campaign was properly predicated? And can Congress expect a formal report on your findings? archived recording (william barr) Yes, I do have people in the department helping me review the activities over the summer of 2016.

nicholas fandos

What about these incredibly biased text messages that two of the lead F.B.I. officials working on this were exchanging to each other?

archived recording (josh hawley) This is a text message from Peter Strzok, a top counterintelligence investigator, who we now know helped launch this counterspy investigation of the president of the United States. Peter Strzok says, “Just went to a Southern Virginia Walmart. I could smell the Trump support.” Smell is capitalized.

nicholas fandos

How are we supposed to believe that this was a fair investigation, especially when, at the end of the day, it didn’t prove any wrongdoing?

archived recording (john kennedy) There were two investigations here. One was the investigation of Donald Trump. There was another investigation of Hillary Clinton.

nicholas fandos

And then they return to another familiar Republican target. They say President Trump may have been treated with political bias, but so was the case of Hillary Clinton. She was gone easy on by many of these same F.B.I. officials.

archived recording (lindsey graham) These are the people that made a decision that Clinton didn’t do anything wrong and that counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign was warranted. We’re going to, in a bipartisan way, I hope, deal with Russia. But when the Mueller report is put to bed, and it soon will be, this committee is going to look long and hard at how this all started.

michael barbaro

So this is the Republicans making the case for basically investigating the investigators — the F.B.I., the apparatus that brought the Russia investigation as far as it did. Because in their minds, since there are no charges, this was a kind of a smear campaign, and the focus of any investigative apparatus now should be understanding how it got this far.

nicholas fandos

That’s right. And we’ve seen the president and some of his most conservative allies for more than a year now make this argument. But what we saw today, I think, was the full Republican Party embracing that idea, that the moment has finally come where what Trump has been clamoring for is actually going to come to pass.

archived recording (josh hawley) Have you looked into the decision by the F.B.I. into why they launched a counterintelligence investigation? archived recording (william barr) I am looking into it, and I have looked into it. archived recording (josh hawley) And you will — will you commit to telling us what you find as the result of your — of your own review and investigation? archived recording (william barr) Well, at the end of the day, when I form conclusions, I intend to share it. archived recording (josh hawley) I’ll take that as a yes. Let me ask —

michael barbaro

O.K., so that’s the Republicans. What about the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee? How are they making their case here?

nicholas fandos

First and foremost, they start by interrogating Bill Barr about this new letter between he and Bob Mueller.

archived recording (patrick leahy) Mr. Mueller wrote that your letter threatened to undermine a central purpose for which they department appointed the special counsel, to ensure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigation.

nicholas fandos

They’re interested in why Bill Barr told another congressional committee a couple of weeks ago that he didn’t know why Mueller or his investigators may be dissatisfied with the way he had talked about the report.

archived recording (patrick leahy) I’m somewhat troubled by your testimony here and in the other body. You appeared before the House Appropriations on April 9th. You were asked —

nicholas fandos

He was asked, in a House hearing, after there were press reports of dissatisfaction on the Mueller team, you know, what’s up with that? Do you know what’s behind this?

archived recording (patrick leahy) And the congressman — I believe it was Congressman Crist, asked if you know what those members of the special counsel’s team were concerned about. You testified in response, no, I don’t.

nicholas fandos

And he basically gave a little bit of a squishy answer. But the effect of it was no. And so senators wanted to know —

archived recording (patrick leahy) Why did you testify on April 9th that you didn’t know the concerns being expressed by Mueller’s team, when, in fact, you had heard those concerns directly from Mr. Mueller two weeks before?

nicholas fandos

— you had this letter in your hand at this point. What were you talking about? You knew what Mueller’s problem was.

michael barbaro

He had the Mueller letter that explicitly said, I’m not happy with how you summarized things, at the moment that he went before this other committee and said, I don’t quite know what you’re talking about.

nicholas fandos

That’s right. And not only that, he testified that, in fact, he, as soon as he got the letter, picked up the phone, and called Mueller, and said —

archived recording (william barr) Bob, what’s with the letter? You know, why didn’t you just pick up the phone and call me if there’s an issue?

nicholas fandos

And consistently, Barr seemed to downplay to Democrats what the significance of this lapse of time and understanding was.

archived recording (william barr) I talked directly to Bob, and Bob told me that he did not have objections to the accuracy.

nicholas fandos

He essentially said, this is a silly dispute. If I end up putting out the full report, as I did, what difference does it make? The public can now go and view it. They can now make their own judgments.

archived recording (william barr) After a monthslong trial, if I wanted to go out and get out to the public what the verdict was, pending preparation of the full transcript, that I’m out there saying, here’s the verdict, and the prosecutor comes up and taps me on the shoulder, and says, well, the verdict doesn’t really fully capture all my work. How about that great cross-examination I did? Or how about that third day of trial, where I did that? This doesn’t capture everything. My answer to that is I’m not trying to capture everything. I’m just trying to state the verdict.

michael barbaro

I was struck by the fact that Barr took this opportunity to basically say, remember —

archived recording (william barr) It was my decision how and when to make it public, not Bob Mueller’s.

michael barbaro

I am the boss here. When it comes to what gets disclosed, that’s my decision, not Robert Mueller’s.

nicholas fandos

That’s right. This is where Barr fell back both on his authority as attorney general and the specific regulation governing the special counsel. And he said, basically, I have control of the baby after Mueller handed it over to me. And I’m sorry if Bob was dissatisfied, essentially.

michael barbaro

He’s my employee.

nicholas fandos

Yeah, I’m Bob’s boss.

archived recording (dianne feinstein) The special counsel’s report describes how the president directed White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Special Counsel Mueller, and later told McGahn to write a letter, quote, “for our records,” end quote, stating that the president had not ordered him to fire Mueller.

nicholas fandos

And then, Dianne Feinstein, who’s the top Democrat on the committee, basically starts walking through the evidence around the president’s interactions with Don McGahn, his White House counsel, who was an important witness for the Mueller investigation.

archived recording (dianne feinstein) The report also recounts how the president made repeated efforts to get McGahn to change his story.

nicholas fandos

And is pressing the attorney general, saying, look at this behavior.

archived recording (dianne feinstein) Does existing law prohibit efforts to get a witness to lie to say something the witness believes is false? archived recording (william barr) Yes, lie to the government, yes.

nicholas fandos

Look at the president telling McGahn to get rid of the special counsel because he has conflicts. How is that not obstruction of justice? How does that not meet your criteria?

archived recording (dianne feinstein) You still have a situation where a president essentially tries to change the lawyer’s account in order to prevent further criticism of himself. archived recording (william barr) Well, that’s not a crime. archived recording (dianne feinstein) So you can, in this situation, instruct someone to lie? archived recording (william barr) No, it has to be — well, to be obstruction of justice, the lie has to be tied to impairing the evidence in a particular proceeding.

nicholas fandos

And they begin to work through what are basically 10 instances that the Mueller report lays out, and, kind of incredulously, listen as Barr comes back with very legally precise and sometimes quite in the weeds kind of answers that I think for Democrats ring hollow, but allow Barr to keep maneuvering forward through these questions.

michael barbaro

So Nick, what are we learning about Bill Barr through these exchanges and through this testimony?

nicholas fandos

So what we see is an attorney general who is supremely confident in his understanding of the law, in his own judgments, and has a generous view of the president’s executive power. These are things that we knew were true about Bill Barr. And to a remarkable degree, he is acting them out just as Republicans and Democrats seemed to agree that he would. I mean, he was not an upbeat witness today. But he also wasn’t ruffled by Democrats, who, in some cases, were calling for him, to his face, to resign —

archived recording (mazie hirono) You have betrayed that trust. America deserves better. You should resign.

nicholas fandos

— who were calling him an embarrassment and comparing him to some of the president’s staunchest political defenders. And he just trudged forward. He was not pulled into criticizing the president, nor was he — did he give an inch on his own behavior.

archived recording (richard blumenthal) You, in effect, exonerated or cleared the president. archived recording (william barr) No, I didn’t exonerate. I said that we did not believe that there was sufficient evidence to establish an obstruction offense, which is the job of the Justice Department.

michael barbaro

It felt like if Bill Barr was criticizing anybody or anything, and this was a bit of a surprise for me, because my sense is that they have been friends for a long time, he was criticizing the special counsel, Robert Mueller, and his office.

nicholas fandos

This was one of the more remarkable aspects of this testimony today. Time and again, he brought up his old friend Bob Mueller and essentially cast some blame onto him.

archived recording (chuck grassley) Do you agree with the reasons that he offered for not making a decision in Volume Two of his report, and why, or why not? archived recording (william barr) I’m not really sure of his reasoning.

nicholas fandos

And then, very near the end of the hearing, after the senators had gone around and around on this letter, he describes it as —

archived recording (william barr) You know, the letter’s a bit snitty, and I think it was probably written by one of his staff people.

nicholas fandos

Contempt may be too strong a word, but this is not the kind of reverence or relationship that we’re accustomed to people talking about Bob Mueller with and that we would probably expect from the attorney general towards a special counsel who he’s been working so closely with.

archived recording (william barr) Thank you. archived recording (lindsey graham) From my point of view, it was pretty interesting, and it got off in a ditch every now and then, but generally speaking, the committee did pretty good. And this is what democracy is all about. Thank you for being our attorney general. archived recording (william barr) Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

michael barbaro

It felt like the question before this testimony was what Congress was going to do now that they have the full Mueller report, or the redacted Mueller report — what kind of oversight they would really pursue. And so, I wonder what you think we learned on Wednesday from this testimony of Bill Barr about what that’s going to look like, and how this is going to play out over the next few months.

nicholas fandos

So this was never going to be easy for the Democrats. For one thing, President Trump relishes a fight. He thinks he benefits from fights. And so he was always going to be willing to take on Democrats, particularly in the House, who are investigating him. But I think what became really clear on Wednesday is just how sloppy, and slow, and complicated this process is going to be if Democrats really want to go all the way on some of these questions.

michael barbaro

What do you mean?

nicholas fandos

In five minute chunks of time, in public hearings, it’s difficult to litigate complex legal issues —

michael barbaro

Right.

nicholas fandos

— or detailed episodes that happened more than a year ago. And the Justice Department does not seem to want to lend a hand to that process. I think that there were some clear targets that the hearing kind of sussed out today. The leading one is Bob Mueller. There seems to be a unified belief among Democrats that they need to hear from Bob Mueller, not just next, but quickly. But beyond that, I think they’re going to have a difficult time, particularly with Republicans as unwilling investigative partners, and the Justice Department and the White House as unwilling producers of witnesses and information, getting far, or ultimately achieving their end, which would be to lay this case out in a understandable, clear way for the American people to see and make a judgment.

michael barbaro

Nick, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

nicholas fandos

Thank you.

speaker

Sorry to interrupt, but we’re hearing that —

nicholas fandos

One second.

speaker

— we’re hearing that Barr’s not coming tomorrow.

nicholas fandos

O.K.

speaker

Can you confirm that? Because CNN and a couple other outlets had it.

nicholas fandos

Oh, let me see. O.K., yeah, confirmed.

speaker

Confirmed?

nicholas fandos

Yeah, from a committee aide.

speaker

O.K.

nicholas fandos

All right, sorry, guys. So Barr is not going tomorrow.

michael barbaro