Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Live,” former Democratic Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman, who was on the House Judiciary Committee when it recommended impeachment articles against President Nixon, said Attorney General William Barr is not independent but rather a “Republican hatchet man.”

Holtzman said, “He’s a Republican hatchet man. Let’s go back to when he was advising about the pardons in the Iran-Contra situation. So, he talked about this in his confirmation hearing. The fact of the matter is, we have an attorney general who put himself politically right in the middle of what a special prosecutor, a special counsel, Bob Mueller did, and he drew conclusions that Mueller failed to. He hasn’t released that report yet.”

She continued, ‘There’s another report that’s coming out about whether there was improper surveillance or activity by the FBI in connection with the campaign in 2016. The only reason I can think that Barr is doing this is he is a flunky for Donald Trump. He’s not an independent thinker. He sounds good. He seems sincere, but if you look at what he does, not what he says, then you see the actions of a hatchet man here, and it’s really disturbing. Jeffrey Toobin said in the New Yorker yesterday the fix is in, that’s what we see.”

She added, “He used a loaded word. He has drawn a collusion. He has decided that spying took place. Spying is not a neutral word … You only use that when you’re making a derogatory description of what happened. And he’s already judge, jury, prosecutor here. He’s being a hatchet man, and that is really really disturbing. The inspector general is a nonpolitical job. He is inserting himself, the attorney general in a political way into a decision that he should leave to the inspector general. If that raises questions, sure, go forward and have an independent review. But when you have a president who’s been screaming from the get-go this is a fake investigation, he’s tried to stymie it in various ways and basically following that play rule, that’s terrible, and it’s scary about where this country is going. The attorney general should be somebody who obeys the law and is not carrying out a political mandate.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN