'What's the problem?': Attorney General Barr answered questions from senators about the 'Russia case' in Mueller's report

US Attorney General William Barr spoke on Wednesday, 1 May, at Senate hearings, where report of special prosecutor Robert Muller the results of the investigation into Russia's interference with the presidential election in the United States in 2016. The first after the publication of Muller’s report, the appearance of Prosecutor General Barr at congressional hearings was expected with particular interest, because President Trump’s opponents had serious complaints against the Prosecutor General, who, in their opinion, submitted a report Muller in the biased and most advantageous for President Trump light.

Фото: Depositphotos

Loud reproaches of the Democrats addressed to the Prosecutor General were heard on 24 in March, immediately after the publication of a letter to Congress signed by Prosecutor General William Barr. In this letter, he summarized the report of Muller, transmitted by the special prosecutor, according to the established procedure, to the general prosecutor's office two days earlier. Attorney General reported that Special Prosecutor Muller found no signs of collusion or cooperation of people from the election headquarters of Donald Trump with Russian representatives to influence the outcome of the elections.

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But at the same time, the special prosecutor refused to draw a conclusion on the second very important point of the investigation: whether President Trump obstructed the administration of justice, that is, whether he tried to obstruct the investigation, led by Muller. The Muller report presented only facts, and the Attorney General himself, within the framework of his authority, concluded that President Trump did not commit unlawful acts.

Фото: Depositphotos

A few weeks later, a docked version of the report was made public, from which it was clear that the Special Prosecutor did find ten examples of the president’s actions that showed signs of obstruction to justice. This allowed President Trump’s opponents to blame the Prosecutor General for covering up the potentially illegal acts of President Trump. Literally a day before the hearings in the press, there were reports that Robert Muller wrote a letter to William Barr back in March, expressing dissatisfaction with his letter to Congress, outlining the findings of the report.

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It is not very clear what the former special prosecutor was dissatisfied with. He writes that Barr did not accurately reflect the "context, nature and substance" of the report. It was this letter from Mueller a month ago, suddenly published by The Washington Post, that provided the basis for the most harsh and powerful accusations against the attorney general from Democratic senators. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthol called the special counsel's reproaches to the nation's attorney general "an extraordinary case."

According to Barr, in fact, Muller did not dispute the interpretation of his report to Barr in a letter to Congress. Barr said that he called Muller after he received the letter:

- I asked Bob, what's the problem? Are you trying to say that my letter from March 24 contained inaccurate information? He replied: no, but press reports were inaccurate. When I asked what specifically worried him, he replied that he was worried about an inaccurate explanation of his decision about obstruction of justice. And he would like us to devote more attention to this issue.

The attorney general's explanation of the reasons that led him to conclude that Donald Trump was not attempting to obstruct justice sparked the most emotional moment of the hearing, when Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono accused Attorney General Barr of covering up for the president: "I expected you to try to protect the president. This is exactly what happened. America deserves better, you must resign." But she immediately received a rebuff from her Senate colleague, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham: “You have slandered this man from head to toe.”

Unlike Democrats, who methodically, one after another, questioned the motives of the attorney general's actions and demanded that special counsel Mueller be summoned to the hearing to get information from his lips, Republicans barely mentioned the Mueller report. As Senator Graham said, "I have read most of the report and in my opinion the case is closed." Republicans tried to shift attention from the president's actions to the actions of prosecutors and the FBI, which, according to many Republicans, began, at the whim of their superiors, who were skeptical of Donald Trump, an investigation for which there was no legal basis.

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The Attorney General's Office is already conducting an internal investigation into what Attorney General Barr has described as "espionage" of the Trump campaign by the FBI. We are talking about the wiretapping of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. And Republican legislators promised to take a closer look at how and why the FBI, on the eve of the presidential election, closed the case of Hillary Clinton’s illegal use of her personal email address for official correspondence while she was Secretary of State.

Commentators influential publications also sharply disagreed, according to their party preferences appreciating the Senate hearing.

“Why couldn’t Barr whitewash the Mueller report,” asks Neal Katyal, a law professor at Georgetown University, in The New York Times. And he answers: “Because we have a system that allows us to uncover evidence of illegal actions of the current president. And this system works. We now know that Attorney General Barr's reasons for justifying the president's actions look painfully facile. His testimony necessitates a full Congressional investigation."

But The Wall Street Journal, in its editorial "The Real Attorney General," admires Attorney General Barr's actions. According to the newspaper, the attorney general decided to make an unpopular decision among Democrats about the president's innocence based on the Mueller report because the special counsel himself neglected his duties and avoided deciding whether President Trump's actions deserved or did not deserve charges of obstruction of justice. “This public vilification of Bill Barr shows how frustrated and angry Democrats are that the Russia collusion investigation has come to nothing,” the newspaper wrote.

While the political elite remains hopelessly divided, most Americans believe that President Trump’s actions do not deserve impeachment. According to the latest public opinion poll, 53 percent oppose impeachment, 39 pro.

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