Barr certainly wasn’t transparent about his interactions with Mueller. That’s not the same as lying. And the bar for perjury is high.
For all the Republican caricatures of her, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is hardly a fire-breathing, San Francisco liberal ideologue. She’s generally cautious about overreach on stuff like impeachment. She’s uncomfortable with some of the newer, more left-leaning elements in her caucus. She’s a pragmatist interested in keeping her majority intact.
So when she comes out and flat-out accuses the attorney general of a crime, it carries some weight.
That’s what Pelosi did Thursday. In a news conference, she accused William P. Barr of lying to Congress. Asked to confirm she was accusing Barr of a “crime,” she did.
In doing so, the speaker joins with many of her colleagues who have accused Barr of perjury or said he should resign — or both.
But was his testimony a lie? If you look closely at Barr’s words, clearing the very high bar that exists for proving perjury would be difficult (even if you set aside that it would be his own Justice Department bringing such charges, which . .). Were his words misleading and opaque? Yes. But that’s not the question.
At issue here is testimony Barr gave to both the House and Senate last month. The testimony came after he summarized the Mueller Report’s principal conclusions and said he would not accuse President Trump of obstruction of justice. He was asked at the time about news reports that suggested members of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team were unhappy with how Barr had handled previewing their report. What we didn’t know at the time was that Mueller had also sent Barr a letter raising concerns, and the two of them had spoken on the phone about the matter.
