Live coverage: Barr set for grilling on Mueller's criticism
BY MORGAN CHALFANT - 05/01/19 08:30 AM EDT 293
Attorney General William Barr is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
The hearing marks Barr's first appearance on Capitol Hill since the release of Mueller’s exhaustive 448-page report detailing his probe into Russian election interference and possible obstruction by President Trump.
The hearing also comes a day after a Justice Department spokeswoman said that Mueller had expressed “frustration” to Barr in late March over the lack of context in the attorney general’s four-page memo describing his investigation’s findings.
The Washington Post first reported Tuesday evening that Mueller wrote a letter to Barr on March 27 that his memo did not "capture the context, nature, and substance" of his findings and resulted in "public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation."
Mueller did not establish that members of the Trump campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government during the 2016 election and did not come to a formal conclusion on whether Trump obstructed the probe, but said Congress has the authority to investigate the issue.
Democrats have accused Barr of bias in his handling of Mueller’s findings and are expected to grill the attorney general on his judgment that the evidence laid out in the special counsel’s report was insufficient to accuse Trump of obstruction.
The hearing begins at 10 a.m. Follow The Hill's live coverage here.
House Judiciary releases full Mueller letter to Barr
10:04 a.m.
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee released a full copy of Mueller’s letter to Barr criticizing aspects of the attorney general’s summary of the special counsel’s report.
The letter was published moments before Barr arrived in the hearing room. Reports of the letter first surfaced Monday night and prompted several Democratic lawmakers to suggest the attorney general should resign.
Mueller wrote to Barr that the attorney general's initial four-page summary of the report "did not fully capture the nature, and substance of the Office's work and conclusions."
— Brett Samuels
Barr arrives
10:02 a.m.
Barr arrived in the packed hearing room shortly after 10 a.m. A smattering of photographers snapped his picture as he sat down in the witness chair. Throngs of reporters and other members of the public were packed into the Senate Judiciary Committee room to watch the proceedings.
— Morgan Chalfant
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