Senate Democrats, led by 2020 White House contender Amy Klobuchar, on Wednesday contested Attorney General William Barr’s conclusion that President Trump did not try to obstruct the Mueller investigation into Russian collusion.
Klobuchar, D-Minn., said the Mueller report outlines incidents where Trump attempted to influence the investigation by attempting to fire the special counsel and coercing witnesses including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump’s ex-personal lawyer Michael Cohen.
“Look at the pattern here,” said Klobuchar, a former prosecutor, referring to the examples outlined in the Mueller report such as the instance where Trump urged Cohen to “hang in there” and “stay strong.”
Barr disagreed with Klobuchar and said the individual incidents did not qualify as criminal obstruction.
Barr said he believes Trump was urging the witnesses to resist fabricating false evidence against him in order to escape criminal punishment.
“Discouraging flipping in that sense is not obstructing,” Barr said.
Klobuchar said “the totality of the evidence” shows obstruction by Trump.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said Trump’s effort to remove Mueller is an indication of obstruction and his campaign broke the law when it failed to report Russian attempts to pass along information about Hillary Clinton.
“Whether or not you can make a criminal charge out of this it is unacceptable,” Coons said. “The Russians offered Trump dirt on Hillary Clinton, and they never reported that to the FBI,” Coons said.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., called on Barr to recuse himself from the remaining open investigations related to the investigation.
Barr refused.
Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, tried to force Barr to reveal whether he believed Trump’s overall behavior during the investigation was “OK” and accused Barr of lying to Congress.
“You seem to think it’s not a crime then, there is no problem, nothing to see here, nothing to worry about,” Hirono said. “Do you think all of the things Trump did are OK?”
“How did we get to this point?” Barr responded.
Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., cut off Hirono and accused her of slandering Barr “from top to bottom.”
