Attorney General Bill Barr’s criticism of Monday’s inspector general report was unexpected, Justice Department watchdog Michael Horowitz told Senators on Wednesday.
Horowitz made the statement in response to questioning from Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who noted that his staff had reviewed 797 IG reports issued by Horowitz’s office during his tenure.
“How many I.G. Reports under your name involve the Justice Department arguing that in fact committed more misconduct than your investigation uncovered?” Leahy asked, referencing Barr’s statement that the Trump-Russia investigation was opened “on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken.”
Horowitz told Leahy, “I don’t recall that happening before.”
The Justice Department was given an opportunity to provide a response to the report’s conclusions, Horowitz said, but did not reply. Instead, Barr and Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is conducting a separate, criminal probe into the Trump-Russia investigation, issued statements timed to coincide with the report’s Monday release.
Leahy told the DOJ watchdog that he found it “very unusual that Attorney General Barr didn’t send you anything to go in the report.”
Later during the questioning, Leahy referenced Barr and Durham’s recent trip to Italy, where they reportedly gathered evidence for Durham’s probe.
“How do we know that politics is not driving the Barr Durham investigation?” Leahy asked.
“I’m not sure how anybody knows what you don’t know unless you do an investigation or you review it or somebody looks through as we did, for example, here,” Horowitz replied.
Well, it sure isn’t a desire to enforce the law. Barr doesn’t need to lie to do that.
I’d like to see some comments and ideas on how this political dishonest strategy by Barr can be countered and who could be capable of doing it. It looks like they want to confuse the electorate as the 2020 election comes closer.
Atypical hardly captures the rarity or outlier nature of Barr’s comments, which are less common than the interaction of dark matter with a xenon nucleus.
“The Justice Department was given an opportunity to provide a response to the report’s conclusions, Horowitz said, but did not reply.”
Such a normal-process reply would require providing additional facts and/or reasoned analysis, and the participation of DOJ staff … something Barr was not willing to do, and something that was not even possible given the extent and detail of the IG report. There simply are no contrary facts or reasonable conclusions that could be drawn.
Instead, we get Barr’s lying bullshit with Durham obediently adding on.
I’d like comments from Horowitz, Barr, and Durham about how the FBI Russia/election probe was kept secret. It just didn’t come out before the election. That alone supports the diligence of the FBI, no? Can they imagine what would have happened if it had come out before the election?
The announcement of a probe is damaging, isn’t it, Barr should be asked in this context, and then relate it over to Trump and Ukraine.