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PART FOUR
BARR HEARING ABOUT MUELLER REPORT BEFORE SENATE JUDICIARY CMTE
[TEXOKIE NOTES/TAKEAWAYS - Not a transcript]

5/1/19

TILLIS

Goes to the list of search warrants, interviews and work that they did. He is saying that the new normal we are finding here is that “after all of this investigation and you haven’t found any conduct worthy of indictment, that you can just bounce back from political reasons and indict somebody.”

He talks of NYT headline Mueller pushed a letter for Barr to release the report’s summary.

Narrative now seems to be: So doesn’t this undermine the AG because Mueller wanted the exec summaries issued?

Goes back to Barr’s opening statement re the need to do the redacting after he had requested the redacting to already to have been done. T asked if Barr had ever consider just release the letter and let the press work on that for 3 weeks. No.

Went over the percentages of redaction.

T makes the point that the data is there, and no matter how you spin it, there is no underlying crime.

They talked a bit about exoneration.

Then T brought up Strozk and Page. He affirms that majority of people in DOJ and FBI are good people. He hopes that they [the bad ones] are being investigated.

T asks about the scope of the Horowitz investigation. Barr says he doesn’t want to be too specific. He did speak with Horowitz a few weeks ago. It is focused on the basis of the FISA. By necessity it does look back a bit from that. I and my people will be working with him.

T affirms with Barr that there was no underlying crime. He is noting the dems are not respectful of innocent til proven guilty.

K HARRIS
Has the President ask you to open an investigation on anyone, yes or no?

More lawyer speak.

H: Did you personally review all the underlying evidence?
Barr: No, we accepted the statements in the report as factual record. We did not go underneath it. We accepted it as accurate.
H: Did RR look at the underlying evidence?
B: Not to my knowledge.
H: Did anyone in your exec off review?
B: No

H: Yet you said to the American Ppl that the evidence is not sufficient to support an Obstruction of Justice?

B: The evidence presented in the report. This is not a mysterious process. We have procecution and definition memos every day in the DOJ coming up and we don’t look up the underlying evidence of them. We accept the characterization of the evidence as true.

H: As AG, running the DOJ, would you, from any US Attorney office would you accept from any of them when being asked to make a critical decision, about the highest office in the land, and whether or not that person committed a crime, would you accept them recommending a charging decision to you if they had not reviewed the underlying evidence?

Barr: well, that’s a question for Bob Mueller. He’s the US Attorney, he’s the one who presents the report.
H: But it was you who made the charging decision, sir.

B: It was my decision whether or not to disclose it to the public.
H: And whose decision was it to decide if evidence was sufficient to make a determination of obstruction of justice.

B: Prosecution memos go up to the supervisor. In this case it was the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General, who decide on the final decision, and that is based on the memo as presented by the US Attorney’s office.

H: [talking over Barr] I think you have made it clear you have not looked at the evidence and we can move on.

H: She ask if he will agree to consult DOJ career ethics officials about his recusal from the 14 investigations discussed by my colleagues is necessary.

B: I don’t see any basis for it. I already consulted with them …

H: about the 14 investigations?
B: About the Mueller case.

H: she asks the question again if he spoke with the ethics guys about him recusing himself from those 14 investigations. She accuses him of conflict of interest.

B: He points out he is not the only decision maker here. RR was also involved. He was approved by the Senate, 94 to 6 with specific discussion on the floor that he would be responsible for supervising the Russian investigation.

H: I’m glad you brought that up….

B: [he talks over her - difficult to make out the point]

H: She is pointing out RR’s conflict of interest. Did B consult ethics guys about having someone with those conflicts in the decision process about obstruction, who was a potential witness to a lot of the things being investigated?

B: His understanding was that RR had already been cleared when he took over the investigation.

Bit of a blow by blow between them here. At one point, Barr rolls his eyes because of the obtuseness of the questioning.

CRAPO
Talks about the letter released March 27. - who released it to the public. Was it an AG decision to release it? The dept provided it this morning. He is asking how the Wash Post got it?

B: IDK

C: went over once more the desire of Mueller to have the summaries of the report released. What he wanted to do is put out everything at once.

He also makes the point about history of leaks. He thinks that Mueller’s concerns were being leaked, and then in that context the letter in which M was detailing those concerns was released.

C brings up the bias at FBI found by Horowitz, but couldn’t find that the bias but could not find that it affected the work product.

How is political bias being addressed?

B refers to C Wray. The bad apples at the top are no longer there, and the Wray is making sure that the bias is being addressed.

C asks, and B affirms that it is wrong for FBI people to leak information for political purposes. B also notes that while some leaks are political in nature, what motivates some leaks are that subordinates may not like what superiors are doing, and so data is leaked in order to effect control up the chain.

C notes that Barr has some investigators looking into that type of thing, and B agrees,.,

He asks B, when did the FBI and DOJ know that the Steele Dossier was paid for by the Democrat Party? Which then served as the basis for Carter Page FISA?

B: IDK

C: Are you investigating to determine that?
B: Yes.

C: Did FBI, DOJ and other agencies engage in investigative activities before an official investigation was opened July 2016?

B: IDK…. Am investigating that.

[Breaking up what would otherwise be a way too long post. More coming. ]
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