Attorney General Bill Barr will testify before House Democrats next month where he’ll face questions on why he overruled Roger Stone’s sentencing and what is going on with Rudy Giuliani’s investigation of the Bidens.
House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, who helped lead the impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump, announced Wednesday Barr will testify on March 31.
Nadler outlined three areas he intends to question Barr on, all of them having to do with allegations from Democrats that the president abused his power.
Attorney General Bill Barr will testify before House Democrats on March 31
House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, who helped lead the impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump, will lead the questioning
Barr has been a defender of President Trump’s policies
Barr will be asked about the removal of U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu, who oversaw the prosecutions of President Trump’s deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates, President Trump’s former national security advisor Michael Flynn, and President Trump’s longtime political adviser Roger Stone.
Trump withdrew Liu’s nomination to be the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes, a top position overseeing economic sanctions, after the four prosecutors overseeing Roger Stone’s case resigned in the wake of Justice Department interference in Stone’s sentencing.
Liu would have to face confirmation before the Senate for the position and would be sure to be subject to tough questioning from Democrats on Stone.
Barr will also be asked about the process by which Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani is feeding him information about his probes of Joe and Hunter Biden.
And, finally, Barr will be asked about the decision to reduce a recommended sentence for Stone, who was convicted of lying under oath.
The announcement comes as Elizabeth Warren, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, called for Barr’s resignation.
‘Congress must act immediately to rein in our lawless Attorney General. Barr should resign or face impeachment. And Congress should use spending power to defund the AG’s authority to interfere with anything that affects Trump, his friends, or his elections,’ she wrote on Twitter.
Barr sparked outrage when the Justice Department recommended a lighter sentence for Stone, a longtime ally of President Trump – move that came after the president tweeted about the unfairness of the sentence.
The Justice Department denied the two events were related.
Stone faced up to nine years in jail for what prosecutors call ‘contempt for this court and the rule of law,’ having clashed with the judge over a gag order. Now, prosecutors advised the court to rely on its own judgement in meting out a sentence.
Trump on Tuesday denied asking his attorney general to roll back prosecutors’ recommendation.
Elizabeth Warren called on AG Bill Barr to resign
Barr will face questions about the withdrawal of Jessie Liu’s nomination to the Treasury Department
Barr will face questions about the Justice Department recommended Roger Stone’s sentence be reduced
But Barr has been a zealous defender of Trump’s prerogatives.
Additionally Barr said earlier this week the Justice Department has set up an ‘intake process’ to review information out of Ukraine – and confirmed that it was taking information from Giuliani.
Barr made the comments after Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Sunday the Justice Department was getting information through Giuliani about Ukraine – just days after the Senate voted to acquit President Trump of abuse of power for his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.
Giuliani is gathering in Ukraine about the president´s Democratic rival Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who held a lucrative post on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.
But even as he confirmed the department he oversees would be fielding information from Giuliani, Barr cautioned that federal officials have ‘to be very careful’ with information coming from Ukraine.
The attorney general´s comments at an unrelated news conference in Washington come a day after Graham said Barr told him the department had ‘created a process that Rudy could give information and they would see if it’s verified.’
‘The DOJ has the obligation to have an open door to anybody who wishes to provide us information that they think is relevant,’ Barr said.
‘But as I did say to Senator Graham, we have to be very careful with respect to any information coming from the Ukraine. There are a lot of agendas in the Ukraine, a lot of cross currents. And we can’t take anything we received from Ukraine at face value.’
Barr will face questions about how Rudy Giuliani is feeding information to the Justice Department
Giuliani is investigating Hunter and Joe Biden
Two of Giuliani’s associates who aided his work in Ukraine, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, have been indicted for alleged campaign finance violations. Giuliani himself is reportedly under federal investigation.
His work in Ukraine featured prominently in the arguments put forward in the Trump impeachment, which Democratic managers argued amounted to cheating in an election by trying to induce foreign election interference.