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A dozen Democratic senators Tuesday urged the Inspector General of the Department of Justice and the Office of Professional Liability to open an investigation into Attorney General William Barr's handling of Special Advocate Robert Mueller's report.
Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii led 11 other senators who wrote a letter to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz and Director of Professional Responsibility Corey Amundson urging them to investigate Barr's conduct during his investigation and report. This decision comes just a day before Barr is supposed to testify before the Judiciary Committee of the Senate.
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"The actions of the Attorney General Barr raise important questions about his decision not to prevent him from supervising the investigation of the special advocate, if his actions regarding the publication of the report, compiled with the policies and practices of the Department of Justice, and if he showed sufficient impartiality to continue to supervise the fourteen criminal cases related to the investigation of the special advocate, who were mainly referred to other components of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, "wrote the senators.
"In light of these concerns, we respectfully request that the Office of the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Liability begin investigations immediately on these issues."
Hirono, with Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn .; Kamala Harris, D-Calif .; Ed Markey, D-Mass .; Tom Udall, D-N.M .; Ron Wyden, D-Ore .; Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I .; Patty Murray, D-Wash .; Cory Booker, D-N.J .; Jack Reed, D-R.I .; Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y .; and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.
Of the senators who signed the letter, only six of the ten Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee signed. Member of the Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt .; Dick Durbin, D-Ill .; and Chris Coons, D-Del., did not sign the letter.
The inquiry is part of Barr's growing attention to the handling of the Mueller report. When the special council forwarded the more than 400-page report to the Department of Justice last month, Barr released a four-page summary outlining the results of the investigation, which lasted nearly two years.
Barr announced that the special attorney found no evidence of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election. Mueller was also at the helm of the party. an investigation to determine whether the president had impeded justice during the investigation. Mueller did not reach a conclusion on this, but instead referred the decision to the Department of Justice. Barr and the Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, announced that the evidence found during the Mueller investigation was not sufficient to indict the president of an offense of obstructing justice .
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After the summary was published, Barr promised to publish the full report, with the redactions, to the public and Congress before mid-April. Barr has kept his word, but congressional Democrats have reacted against his decision to delete some points from the report. The redactions covered some areas examined by both Barr and Mueller to protect sources and methods, as well as the interests of "peripheral actors" in the reputation of the investigation.
Before the publication of the full report, Barr testified before Congress and was harshly criticized for his comments on the origins of the Trump-Russia inquiry. Barr stated that he was conducting a review of the origins and alleged misconduct at the beginning of the counterintelligence investigation. Barr also said that he thought "espionage had actually occurred" during the Trump campaign in 2016 – a comment that congressional Democrats blamed him for.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice and the Judiciary Committee of the House are at a standstill on the Attorney General's testimony scheduled for Thursday. The Democrats on the panel want the committee staff to question Barr. The Department of Justice and the Attorney General said that he would not attend the scheduled hearing unless the members of the committee questioned him.
Mike Emanuel and Jason Donner of Fox News contributed to this report.
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