Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham invited special counsel Robert Mueller to “provide testimony” to the panel if Mueller wanted to discuss any discrepancies with Attorney General William Barr’s responses to questions from lawmakers this week about a phone call between the two men.
“Please inform the Committee if you would like to provide testimony regarding any misrepresentation by the Attorney General of the substance of that phone call,” Graham wrote to Mueller.
Graham said Wednesday he will not ask Mueller to testify before the panel about the 448-page report he completed that cleared the Trump campaign of collaborating with the Russians in 2016 but left open whether Trump tried to obstruct the probe.
Graham, R-S.C., said he would seek from Mueller testimony limited to the phone call if Mueller disputed Barr’s accounting of the exchange.
The call took place a few days after Mueller’s March 27 letter.
Barr called Mueller to ask him why he had sent Barr a four-page letter complaining about Barr’s own short memo to Congress about the report. In the letter, Mueller said Barr’s memo did not adequately capture all the findings in the report, which has now been released in a redacted version.
During the call, according to Barr, Mueller said he thought the press coverage was not accurate, but that Barr’s memo was not inaccurate.
Barr told the Senate he found the Mueller letter to be “snitty” and likely authored by Mueller’s staff.
Senate Judiciary Committee member Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., demanded Barr hand over his notes of the conversation during Barr’s appearance before the panel on Wednesday. Barr refused, and Graham promised to follow up with Mueller.
