Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal said Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee needed to interrupt Attorney General William Barr to stop him from wasting their time.
Jayapal, a Democrat, told CNN that members of the panel had to prevent Barr from absorbing their five minutes of allotted time with lengthy answers. She called Barr a “skilled attorney” who knew how to waste members’ time deliberately.
“The thing about the five-minute format is every witness knows that the way to get away from answering questions is to just be very slow in your answers, to thank the Congress members for that excellent question, to not answer, to obfuscate because you have only five minutes,” Jayapal said, later adding, “You have to take control of your time. Because if you don’t, the witness will do it.”
Jayapal was asked to respond to a tweet from Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, a Republican, who accused Democrats of trying to censor Barr by constantly interrupting his responses.
“Democrats don’t want Attorney General Barr to speak,” Jordan tweeted. “Democrats don’t want Republican members of the Judiciary Committee to speak. Democrats don’t want President Trump to speak. They’ll come for you next.”
Democrats don’t want Attorney General Barr to speak.
Democrats don’t want Republican members of the Judiciary Committee to speak.
Democrats don’t want President Trump to speak.
They’ll come for you next. pic.twitter.com/IqASrFgI8I
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 29, 2020
Jayapal denied that they didn’t want to hear from Barr, but she maintained that he could not be allowed to ramble during his answers.
“It’s part of the way the format works, but it’s also when a witness is trying to do that, I think it’s an opportunity to make the point that the witness doesn’t want to answer the question, which, you know, I think that was clear with Bill Barr when he says, ‘I’m not aware of it. I don’t know that. You know, no, that didn’t happen,'” Jayapal said.
“A semantic discussion about what is tear gas, what isn’t tear gas. So, you know, you have to control the time. They don’t expect it often, and there are different ways that members do it. But it’s very important with a hostile witness who clearly knows what the rules are himself and is a skilled attorney,” she added.
Both Jordan and Barr expressed their frustration with the process that unfolded during Tuesday’s hearing.
“This is a hearing. I thought I was the one who was supposed to be heard,” Barr said.
