Rep. Denny Heck (D-WA) noted that Attorney General Bill Barr seemed to be parsing words in his legal analysis of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on the Russia investigation.
First, Heck disputed President Donald Trump's statement made before flying back to Washington after another weekend vacation at Mar-a-Lago. The president claimed that it's not possible for someone to obstruct justice when no crime was committed. As Martha Stewart can attest, that's not accurate.
"He did say something that I agreed with, however," Heck claimed. Trump "said that great harm had been done to America, but the harm that was done to America was during the 2016 presidential election. We simply cannot tolerate, allow, or abide by a foreign government interfering in our decision making. I want to remind the viewers that for months and months and month, the president claimed that there was no interference by Russia, whatsoever. Despite the fact, his entire intelligence community concluded the opposite."
He noted that it begs the question as to why so many people close to Trump seem to be going to jail for lying to Mueller. If there wasn't a crime committed, why did they lie?
"He's also characterized this as a witch hunt," Heck continued. "Well, if it was a witch hunt, there were a lot of witches found. Their names were Flynn and Cohen and Manafort and right on down the line."
But it was one line in the Barr letter that Heck found curious: the claim that the Russian government didn't conspire with the Trump campaign.
"Once I see his report, if that, taken within a broader context, is what he's asserting, then I'm more than willing to acknowledge it," Heck said. "This is a letter written by Attorney General Barr, selectively quoting that. I think it's very curious as to why he said Russian government because as we know, oftentimes the way the Russian government, intelligence community operates is through cut-outs or people who don't work specifically for the government but work on behalf of the Russian government. It just begs this question again as to the importance and necessity for the entire Mueller report to be revealed. It needs to be a transparent process."
Watch his comments below:
