House Democrats immediately launched into confrontational and adversarial questions to Attorney General William Barr at his recent committee testimony. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says that may not be the best approach.
“I think every member has a different and unique style. I think I probably would have approached the questioning differently,” the New York Democrat told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday, following Barr’s testimony the prior day before the House Judiciary Committee.
“One of the most difficult things to do in a hearing is to try to extract information from a witness that is non-responsive or non-cooperative. And so I think that every member had just an enormous challenge ahead of them,” said Ocasio-Cortez, elected in 2018 after beating a member of the Democratic leadership in a primary from the left. “One of the things that we could have expected was a very large degree of stonewalling.”
Republican lawmakers on the panel became exasperated with the Democrats’ approach to questioning Barr. The committee’s ranking Republican member, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, tweeted, “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.”
However, criticism of the majority party’s tactics on questioning Barr also came from Democrats. Dan Goldman, senior counsel to the House Intelligence Committee in the run-up and during Trump’s impeachment trial, took aim at House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat.
Goldman tweeted, “Ineffective opening line of questioning by @RepJerryNadler.” Goldman went on to list four follow-up questions Democrats should have asked.
Former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and regular Trump critic Preet Bharara tweeted, “Disappointing hearing and getting worse.”
When asked if she would have cut off Barr during his responses, as her colleagues did on Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez referenced how she questioned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday during the tech hearing hosted by a Judiciary subcommittee.
“It all depends on how your witness is trying to respond to the question, right?” she said. “Because in my, for example, in my questioning of Mark Zuckerberg there were moments where I cut him off because it was very clear that he was trying to filibuster and provide a non-answer, and when that is evident and clear, I think it is appropriate when you’re controlling the time.”
The New York Democrat added, “And you only have five minutes to kind of cut it short and move on in order to extract more substantive information.” She continued, “It’s like an extraction mission. Like you want to bust down the door, get in, get the goods, and get out.”
