The long-awaited testimony of Trump’s most powerful Cabinet member yielded more venting than questions, and few answers. There’s a reason for that.
House Democrats have been waiting for more than a year to grill Attorney General Bill Barr, a man they’ve accused of all manner of professional misconduct—including repeatedly and inappropriately intervening to protect President Donald Trump and deploying federal agents to incite violence in American cities.
Today they finally had their chance, as Barr testified, at long last, before the House Judiciary Committee. For Trump and Barr’s toughest critics, however, it was a frustrating experience. Barr defended the Justice Department’s handling of protests in Portland, Oregon, and other cities—“We’re not out to cause trouble,” he said—and his decision to order a reduction in the sentence that federal prosecutors had requested for Trump’s longtime associate Roger Stone (a punishment the president eventually commuted). “The judge agreed with me,” the attorney general insisted, in a rare moment when his voice betrayed annoyance. He denied that there was “systemic racism” in police departments across the country, but was barely pressed to defend that assertion.
Democrats have a model for effective congressional oversight: last year’s impeachment hearings against Trump. Though the Senate did not remove the president from office, House Democrats showed how televised hearings could bring to light government conduct that had previously been shielded from public view. The charges were focused, not a hodgepodge of serious but largely unrelated scandals. Democrats turned the initial questioning over to skilled litigators and gave them time to ask witnesses detailed questions and follow-ups. Lawmakers then had their own opportunity.
Democrats departed from that format today. Only the politicians asked questions, and they had only five minutes each to do so. Many of the committee’s senior Democrats chose to use their limited time not to seek answers from Barr but to make speeches. “Reclaiming my time” quickly became the anthem of the day. “This is a hearing,” the attorney general complained at one point. “I thought that I was the one who was supposed to be heard.
