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Attorney General William Barr faced a grilling Tuesday testifying in front of the House Judiciary Committee. Barr clashed with House Democrats over the Portland protests, President Donald Trump's pardoning of Roger Stone, vote-by-mail and the politicization of investigations.
We wanted to ask questions about the president and whether he’s above the law. The only way he can be above the law is if the chief law enforcement law officer allows him to be. So I asked questions of the attorney general essentially helping the president’s friend, Roger Stone, get a reduced sentence and ultimately being pardoned and why that wasn’t being investigated if the president traded that pardon or commutation of a sentence for Roger Stone to not testify against the president, as Roger Stone had said had occurred. The point being, we need to make sure there’s one set of rules. Not just one set for the president and his friends and the attorney general admitted with my questions today that this was the only time in his history as attorney general, because he was an attorney general in the Bush administration, that he ever intervened to help reduce a sentence for someone and it just happened to be the president’s friend.
You know, it’s interesting. The attorney general votes by mail. The president votes by mail. The attorney general is cosigning on the president’s fraudulent claim the election could be rigged if we have expanded vote-by-mail because of COVID. In his years as attorney general, he’s never brought any voter rights case, voter fraud case for any expansive fraudulent voting-by-mail. So, it’s been debunked. What we were trying to get today was a pledge that he would not interfere in the outcome of the election, that he wouldn’t be the president’s personal lawyer and file frivolous lawsuits. For the American people, we were able to raise awareness on why it actually is secure and why we shouldn’t let the president perpetuate the fraud around vote-by-mail that he would like people to believe actually exists.
I get 300 seconds and that goes by very quickly. You saw someone who wouldn’t even admit that the president has mishandled the COVID crisis, which I think shows his lack of credibility. You saw someone who admitted that he intervened to help the president’s friend and no one else. You saw him continue to advance this fraudulent claim against mail-in-balloting. He’s a very smart, slippery witness and that was difficult to deal with. If he tries to help the president going into the election, we have exposed him as somebody who is not independent as a prosecutor, but rather working as the president’s fixer.
It was hard to hear him say that because there are too many instances of Black Americans being victims of police abuse. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t hold up high and shine a light on the police officers that do good work in our community. But we can’t turn a blind eye where these abuses exist. We passed the George Floyd Act in Congress, which would make sweeping police reforms. We hope it gets passed in the Senate and signed by the president. If he doesn’t see it and does not acknowledge it, it will be very hard between now and the next administration for Black Americans to feel safer. We want them to feel safe.
I don’t support anyone who would use violence to take on their cause. Right now, John Lewis is lying in state at the U.S. Capitol and he believed in "Good Trouble," but good, peaceful trouble. However, I do believe bringing in federal officers when local law enforcement is saying they don’t need that, militarized officers, unidentified officers who are doing what they call proactive arrests of people before a crime has been committed enflames the situation and is not making it better. I do think the attorney general should pledge to work with each city to make sure we can protect federal property, but also not to make the situation worse. Gassing a protester, gassing the "Wall of Moms," gassing Lafayette Square near the White House so the president can take a picture at a church, that’s not the proper use of our police. That actually hurts the police when they need to have legitimacy in the community.