Barr contradicted and struggled with the key findings of the Mueller Report

During his four-hour round trip with Senators on Wednesday, Attorney General William Barr questioned and at times seemed to contradict the key findings of the report of special advocate Robert Mueller.

Time and time again, faced with questions from Democrats of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the content of the report, Barr also seemed to be unaware of some of the important details of the report.

When Senator Cory Booker, DN.J., explained how Trump's campaign director, Paul Manafort, shared survey data in August 2016 with his former partner, Konstantin Kilimnik – identified by prosecutors as having links with Russian intelligence – was struggling.

"What information was shared?" Barr asked, inviting Booker to reply, "The survey data was shared, sir, it's in the report."

"With whom?" Barr followed.

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The Special Advocate's team had concluded that there was no sufficient reason to prosecute Manafort's acts as a conspiracy, but a senior Mueller office attorney previously described Manafort's interactions with Kilimnik as being at the "heart" of the investigation into whether Trump's campaign had been conducted. coordinated with the Russian government.

In another case, when Senator Patrick Leahy, Dvt., Cited the Mueller report on "multiple links between Trump campaigners and individuals linked to the Russian government" and that in some cases, "the campaign has was receptive to the offer while others were not, "Barr said he did not understand" what communications it was referring to ".

Leahy said, "You have the report, I just gave you the report page."

At another point, Leahy asked if Trump had "fully cooperated" with Mueller, as Barr wrote, "by having a former assistant tell the Attorney General to recuse himself, to close the investigation and to to declare that the president had done nothing wrong ".

"Where is it in the report?" Barr asked. When Leahy pointed to the page number, Barr whispered, "Good."

At other times, the Attorney General appeared to directly contradict the key findings of the Mueller Report, including giving his perspective on the interactions between Trump and White House lawyer Don McGahn at the time, about the president's attempts to get rid of Mueller.

During interrogation by Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Barr stated that Trump had attempted to fire Mueller because of "conflict of interest" and not to terminate the investigation. He added that the president had enjoined McGahn to correct a New York Times article reporting that Trump had told McGahn only because he felt it was inaccurate.

According to the Mueller Report, however, evidence has shown that "the President did not simply seek to determine whether there were conflicts, but rather sought to use the alleged conflicts as a means of terminating the functions of the Tribunal. special advice ". The Mueller report also said, "There is also evidence that the president knew that he should not have made those calls to McGahn."

"The report is over 400 pages long," said a Justice Department official at ABC News. "It would be impossible for anyone to remember all the details of the report without having anything at hand"

When asked if Barr's testimony contradicted Mueller's findings, the head of the Ministry of Justice replied "No".

Andrew Harnik / AP

One of the most controversial moments may have happened when Democratic Senator Kamala Harris asked Barr whether he, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein or any of his associates had questioned or examined the underlying evidence supporting the conclusions of the report.

"At the Department of Justice, we have cross-notes every day to come," said Barr. "We will not examine the underlying evidence, we consider that the description of the evidence is true."

Harris retaliated, questioning Barr's decision to accept the indictment recommendations without examining the underlying evidence during a "critical decision" regarding "the person who holds the highest office in the country." and whether or not that person committed a crime ".

"I think you made it clear, sir, that you have not looked at the evidence and that we can move on," Harris said.

ABC News & # 39; Alexander Mallin contributed to this report.