Barr seeks to assure Senate over allegiance

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January 17, 2019

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Barr seeks to assure Senate over allegiance

Source: AP | 00:05 UTC+8 January 17, 2019 |

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Vowing “I will not be bullied,” US President Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general asserted independence from the White House, saying he believed that Russia had tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, that the special counsel investigation shadowing Trump is not a witch hunt and that his predecessor was right to recuse himself from the probe.

The comments by William Barr at his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday pointedly departed from Trump’s own views and underscored Barr’s efforts to reassure Democrats that he will not be a loyalist to a president who has appeared to demand it from law enforcement. He also repeatedly sought to assuage concerns that he might disturb or upend special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation as it reaches its final stages.

Some Democrats are worried about that very possibility, citing a memo Barr wrote to the Justice Department before his nomination in which he criticized Mueller’s investigation for the way it was presumably looking into whether Trump had obstructed justice.

Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Barr the memo showed “a determined effort, I thought, to undermine Bob Mueller.” Barr said he was merely trying to advise Justice Department officials against “stretching the statute beyond what was intended” to conclude the president had obstructed justice.

Though Barr said an attorney general should work in concert with an administration’s policy goals, he broke from some Trump talking points, including the mantra that the Russia probe is a witch hunt, and said he frowned on “Lock Her Up” calls for Hillary Clinton.

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Barr seeks to assure Senate over allegiance

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