Barr Squares Off with Democrats in Heated Testimony

sentence for Trump ally Roger Stone were particularly combative. Here's bars exchange with Democratic Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson. You change that recommended the night before, the night before, I'm asking, Well, I'm telling my story. That's what I'm here to do. That's why I'm here. Well, I'm here to tell my story. Joining me is National Security Attorney Bradley Moss, a partner Mark Zade. How would you describe bars testimony and the

questioning by the Democrats and Republicans? The whole situation was a complete disastrous circus, and nobody came out of this looking pretty good. Republicans ran irrelevant talking points to Jordan, you know, particularly amongst them trying to deflect from the situation.

The Democrats looked somewhat petty with their constant reclaiming the time, you know, parliamentary procedure, and the Attorney General dragged out answers, Stall procrastinated and constantly appeared to be unaware of factual details that everybody on the plane at this point seemingly already knew about situations in places like Portland or in

Michigan back in the spring. In the contents of the President's tweets and comments on stuff such as the Roger Stone prosecution of the Michael Flynn prosecution, it was not what we tend to think of anymore as an actual oversight hearing, because it wasn't an oversight hearing. It was a political circus. And it's rather disturbing that this is what it's come to. Let's talk about some of the

different points. There were allegations that he basically abandoned the Justice Department's political independence to back President Trump, and one of the most controversial moves was overruling his own prosecutors to reduce a recommended prison sentence for Trump ally roger Stone. How did he respond to that? YEA, So it was kind of a mixed bag. I mean, one of the things that the Attorney General raised in response was to say that, you know, this is a sixty six year

old man, first time offender, non violent offense. It's not a meeting potatoes kind of crime. Trying to, you know, basically play the role of defense attorney for roger Stone almost um in trying to mitigate any real sense that there should have been a punishment. He then, you know, obviously deflect from that by saying, I still thought it was the righteous prosecution. I thought some jail time was warranted, and that is what the judge ultimately granted before the

President commuted the sentence. But basically, the Attorney General kind raised some mitigating factors that on their own wouldn't usually in any other case of someone other than roger Stone, have been enough to warrant such a reduction in the rent sensing recommendation from the Justice Department. And as the Attorney General noted, is the first time, as far as he's aware, that he's ever otherwise, you know, in intervened

to overrule a sensing recommendation at that stage. I thought that was the most telling part of his answer to the roger Stone questions was that he had never done this before, and the Democrats brought out that one point, but as for the rest of it, didn't seem that they really brought out the egregiousness or the departure from

standards of what he did. Yeah, well, and so this is where, you know, and listening to some of the answers given by the Attorney General, he lives apparently in this world of blissful ignorance of everything else going on around him that the rest of us see on a regular basis. He's seemingly unaware of the president's weeks and

the president's public remarks on these things. He's unaware of the media attention on it, and he wants us to believe that all of these decisions he made, in particular to intervene in this context, was made in a complete vacuum, and that nothing else, you know, influenced his thinking on this, and that he chose intervened for the very first time in a matter like this with what just happened to be the president's longtime personal friend who was publicly commenting

on the fact that he never broke he never turned on the president, and seemingly Bill Barr was unaware of any of these quotes. Either he just happened to be in this lovely little, you know, blissfully ignorant vacuum deciding to intervene. There weren't as many questions about the dropping

of the prosecution of Michael Flynn. Yeah. I think part of the reason that may have not been pushed on as much by the Democrats was simply for the fact that if I were Attorney General Barr and the question was posed to me, I would have largely deflected on the argument that this is a matter of ongoing litigation and not going to comment, And that would have been somewhat consistent with past practices for Democrats and Republicans serving

an Attorney General and testifying before and oversight committee that because the matter was still the subject of ongoing litigation and that matter is a subject on an appeal right now to this full DC circuit, that they can't comment because it would prejudice or otherwise undermine the Justice Department's position. That's certainly going to be something I think in the end here after the election and once that particular litigation is dealt with, we'll get more details on as to

what really went on here. I mean, that was a completely unprecedented maneuver for the just Department to come in and pull the prosecution after they already gotten the guilty plate based off the technicality about notes on when jurisdiction was and was not existing for the investigation. I've never seen that the Justice Departments provided no evidence that they've ever done that before. It doesn't mean they can't do it,

but it reached just reaped a favoritism. Coming up next on Bloomberg Law Bars take on mail and valoting and the residential election. I'm June Grosso and this is Bloomberg. I've been done to Brad Moss of Mark's a about Attorney General William Barr's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. He was questioned about the aggressive use of federal force in response to protests in Washington, d C. And Portland, Oregon. He didn't seem to back down from his assertions that

federal intervention was needed and they did everything correctly. Yeah. Well, this is a very much Bill Barr's view on federal authority and particularly in law enforcements for decades. I mean there's memos that have come out now from the late eighties or the nineties of how he wanted to deploy federal law enforcement when there were riots in the wake of the Rodney King incident. Who has can all remember

way back to the early nineties with that saga. So a lot of what is being pursued here is sort of his fever dream from decades ago that he finally has the ability to implement with the President who's willing to give him that latitude, and a Department of Homeland Security that's run by acting leaders who have no will ability to countermintenment. So DHS has been turned into what

it was never supposed to be. It is now the you know, the equivalence of what we think of as an interior ministry in authoritarian countries, where we have the federal law enforcement that comes in decked out like their military uniform as if they're operating in Kabul or Fallujah

and they're using military style tactics to confront protesters. Have there been violent protesters, Absolutely, And I think everybody's agreed if you engage in that violence, if you deface federal property, if you assault federal officers, you can be prosecuted and

convicted for that. But too many times we've seen in these videos and this reportment's come out of these federal law enforcement officers, way getting over their skis, way going beyond the issue of trying to protect federal property and protect themselves, which they're entitled to do, and going after what are otherwise peaceful protesters who are gathering in large number burs including with you know, you've got the wall of Moms. You get all these different individuals who were

not engaging in violence. If that's the concern, is that Bill Barr is using this opportunity to employ measures that otherwise would never have been permitted. He was questioned about whether he's talked with President Trump about the use of troops and whether that would happen in elections. He evaded the question, but he also indicated that there had been talking. Bill Barr is nothing if not a very crafty old school lawyer, and he knew how to kind of dodge

and deflect around the question. I didn't necessarily take the answers he did provide as indicating or confirming that he had specifically discussed with the President in the context of the re election fight, the idea of deploying troops in support of that idea and to order to push that agenda. It doesn't mean he didn't. The answers he gave were vague enough that he can kind of maneuver around it. But I think we're seeing with you know, not with

the locations. I mean, we just got a new announcement that Operation Legend, which is the code, which is the operation name for this whole effort by federal law enforcement, is now getting deployed to three battleground states, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. It just so happens to be areas where they're high areas higher numbers of Liberals and Democrats who happened to be in those areas, and that's where these federal law enforcements getting deployed. Is there a legitimate reason

for it? There might be in certain respects, but it's very interesting to note that this is where they're choosing to deploy their resources. Whether or not it's being done appropriately is something that's going to be scrutinized heavily in the coming months. An area that was of concern to Democrats and I think to a lot of people looking towards the elections is the fairness of the elections. He was asked about that and to justify his repeated warnings

about the risks of mail in balloting. Yeah, and this is somewhere where I wish you would really stick to his own lane. For lack of a better and at the Beltway phrase, this is not really his job. That's a job for the FEC and other entities from the US government to oversee. It's not his job to be commenting on mail and balloting procedures. And his answer was that he didn't have any actual evidence, you know, for example, that foreign governments were going to print off fake ballots

and submit them. He just said, I have common sense. Well, unfortunately, for US real lawyers, you need more than that. You need evidence, and he admits he has none. The President

has admitted he has none. These are various paranoid theories they have in their mind that they're concerned about because from a demographic standpoint, they're aware that if mail in balloting becomes far more expansive and extensive in this upcoming election, it is more likely to benefit Democrats, who are less likely to vote from times compared to Republicans, and that's

not something they necessarily want to advocate for. Brad He was asked about what would happen if there were disputed elections, and he kept, I will follow the law. Why didn't that answer satisfy the Democrats on the committee? Yeah, well, because it becomes a question. But when he says follow the law, it's Bill Barr's view of what the law is, and Bill Barr's view of the law and the view of a lot of the rest of us doesn't necessarily always tend to align. It's the same kind of issue

with receiving assistance from a foreign government. He hadn't been owed around that issue too, and before he finally said no, they should not be accepting foreign assistant. So the way he's given this answer is kind of similar to how the presidents given the answer. And to be very candid, I hate this question being posed the political candidates or the senior officials because we don't know what the lecture will look like, and so do we have any reason

to believe that they will refew that. You know, the presidents he were to lose and a you know, landslide, would refuse to concede. No, he'll leave. He'll concede defeat in whatever way he chooses fit, and he'll leave the White House in one they're gonna play up this game, though a little bit partially just because the president fit from a media perspective. He likes controversy in the news,

it's what he does. But in the ultimate scheme of things, I don't like the question itself because any candidate, now Joe Biden, would be kind of a similar answer at points, because you just don't know what to look like on election night or election week, whatever it can become at this point, and you can't commit that you'll accept whatever

it missually comes out because there are legal challenges. You mentioned his hesitation to say that a president shouldn't accept foreign help to get elected, and I found that confusing because that is out and out law. There is no question about that. It's not fuzzy. And he said, well, it depends on what kind of help. I don't understand why he didn't just say, of course not well, for one reason was most certainly is that he didn't want to brazenly contradict the president up front the way the

FBI director had. We I'll remember from our pre COVID days there was a infamous interview between the President and George Stefanopolis over at ABC, and the President said the FBI director was wrong to say that it would be improper to receive foreign assistance in the context of the election of the president. Clear he'd welcome such information, he'd

want to see it. So the Attorney General, trying to maintain some manner of you know, civility between itself and the president, didn't want to be quite as brazen as the FBI director is my assumption there. But where he was hemming and hawing. I think on the legal side is that it's unresolved what would qualify as assistant from a from a from a criminal standpoint, And this was some of what the Mueller teams struggled with. If you simply receive information, not money, is that going to be

enough to violate campaign finance laws. There is no clear um ruling or standard on that because it's never happened before in that context, so no one really knows for sure how the law would play out. I think that's really ton of General was kind of dancing around the edges.

The Democrats question him about Trump's response to the coronavirus, which you know, it doesn't seem to really be in the purview of the Attorney General and the Justice Department, and he blamed President Obama, which is something that we heard from the White House. That's another point where you

just question why he's even being asked that. Yeah, I thought it was I thought it was a rather irrelevant question to have asked, and I thought his response was a rather political operative style answered just relying on White House talking point. It doesn't matter how many times things

have been debunked. I don't know why that question was asked, because again, if I had been the Interney General and that question has been post to me in that context, would have largely deflected saying that's not my purview, that's the purview of DHS, that's purview of CDC, and you know entities like that, d o J is supporting them to extent needed. So that's not really what we handle. But Bill Barr has been a long time political operative.

He was very clear on that when he came into this position again which he had held decade earlier, already once before, and so he chose to pursue a political agenda response. I didn't think it was really befitting of his position, but that's what he chose to do. He was questioned about systemic racism in the police. That questioning was a little more tailored, and the Democrats seem to

do better in that area. Yeah, and I think that the Turning General gave what I would characterize at the very Trump party line response, which is to minimize any incidents like what happened with George Floyd as the result of a few bad apples and not reflective of a larger problem. And this becomes sort of the philosophical debate between the two parties here as to whether there is a larger issue at place or whether or not what

we're seeing here is just minor and isolated incidents. When this happens where there's you know, police violence, I gain someone like George Floyd, the Tney General will say, well, that's just a few bad apples. But and there are a few rioters amongst the largely peaceful protest crowd in support something like black Lives Matters. It's they're all violent extremists and arsenists and anarchists. They have they have no problem painting with a broad brush when they feel it's

most appropriate to them. And that was some myst been my issue with the White House's response on this and the Attorney General um serving as that you know, ultimate spokesperson for the Justice Department. So finally, at the end of the hearing, Bar got a wrist bump from one of the Republican congressmen. Was Bar the winner here? I think if you have to truly declare a winner, I think you'd have to give Bar just a slight edge because Democrats didn't really land any true knockout blows on him.

He used the ultimate political inside fighter. He drew them to a draw. He looked petty, they looked petty. But he didn't need to quote unquote win. He just needed to get through it without imploding or without giving in too much. So did they get what they we needed out of him? No, And so for that reason I'd say he wins. Thanks Brad. That's Bradley Moss Apartment, Mark Zaid, And that's it for the edition of Bloomberg Law. I'm

June Grosso. Thanks so much for listening, and remember to tune to The Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight at ten pm Eastern right here on Bloomberg Radio.