Kimberly Strassel: AG Barr is attacked because his probe endangers powerful men



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The only thing more ugly than an angry Washington is a fearful Washington. And it's the fear that drives the blitzkrieg of Attorney General William Barr this week.

Barr was tolerant of hours of democratic insults at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. His reward for his patience had to be labeled, in the space of a news cycle, a binding, dishonest and embarrassing hacking. President Nancy Pelosi publicly accused Barr of lying to Congress, which, she added, is "considered a crime". The chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the House, Jerrold Nadler, announced that he would propose to convict Mr. Barr in contempt of the prosecutor demanding that he submit himself to cross-examination by the staff lawyers of the committee. James Comey, former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, lamented that Donald Trump had "devoured" Mr. Barr's soul. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren calls for the resignation of the Attorney General. California representative Eric Swalwell wants to see him dismissed.

These attacks do not involve the special advocate Robert Mueller, his report, or even the surrealist debate around Mr. Barr's first letter describing the report. The Attorney General presented the transparency demanded by the Democrats: he quickly published a slightly redacted report, which presented the president in a negative light. What should the Democrats oppose?

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Part of this is a frustration. The Democrats foolishly invested two years of political capital in the belief that Mr. Mueller would prove that President Trump had been in collusion with Russia, and Mr. Mueller left them empty handed. Some are personal. Democrats are upset that Mr. Barr will not stop apologizing or apologizing for doing his job. Some people bitterly think that Barr behaves like a true Attorney General, appealing against charges of obstruction of justice rather than letting Democrats have fun with innuendo about obstructing from Mr. Mueller.

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But most of that is probably fear. Mr. Barr made the news during this Senate hearing and, although the press did not notice, the Democrats did. The Attorney General said that he had already assigned people from the Department of Justice to his investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. He stated that his review would be of far-reaching scope – that he was getting details of Congressional investigations, the ongoing investigation by Departmental Inspector General Michael Horowitz, and even the work of Mr. Mueller. Barr said the investigation would not only focus on fall 2016 justifications for secret surveillance warrants against members of the Trump team, but would go back months earlier.

He also said he would focus on the famous "record" concocted by opposition research firm Fusion GPS and former British spy Christopher Steele, on which the FBI was relying so heavily in his investigation. Mr Barr acknowledged that he feared that the file itself was only Russian disinformation, a possibility he described as being "not totally speculative". He also revealed that the ministry had "several ongoing criminal leak investigations" regarding the disclosure of classified details regarding Trump. -Russian investigation.

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