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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Vivian Ho in San Francisco (now) and Erin Durkin in New York (earlier)

Barr reportedly to skip House testimony after Senate grilling – as it happened

Follow our new live blog for coverage of day two of Barr’s testimony.

Evening summary

A snitty end to a snitty day. Happy Wednesday.

DOJ to House Judiciary: subpoena for full Mueller report 'not legitimate oversight'

The Justice Department has responded to House judiciary chair Jerry Nadler’s subpoena for the unredacted Mueller report: “This is not a legitimate use of congressional investigative authority.”

Read the letter in full here.

Here’s the full statement from House judiciary chair Jerry Nadler:

Here’s attorney general William Barr’s full statement for why he won’t be testifying tomorrow before the House judiciary committee:

"We will be forced to start contempt proceedings"

Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon confirms reports that attorney general William Barr will not appear before the House judiciary committee on Thursday.

Moving on to a different type of Barr, it appears we the taxpayers are footing a $1,000-bar tab from one of President Trump’s visits to Mar-a-Lago.

ProPublica reports that this particular bar tab stems from the two-day summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in April 2017. There was the typical lavish dinner, yes. But where the lines blur are with the “less formal events”:

At some point later that evening, a group repaired to Mar-a-Lago’s Library Bar, a wood-paneled study with a portrait of Trump in tennis whites (titled “The Visionary”) hanging nearby. The group asked the bartender to leave the room so it “could speak confidentially,” according to an email written by Mar-a-Lago’s catering director, Brooke Watson.

The Secret Service guarded the door, according to the email. The bartender wasn’t allowed to return. And members of the group began pouring themselves drinks. No one paid.

Six days later, on April 13, Mar-a-Lago created a bill for those drinks, tallying $838 worth of alcohol plus a 20% service charge. It covered 54 drinks (making for an average price of $18.62 each) of premium liquor: Chopin vodka, Patron and Don Julio Blanco tequilas and Woodford Reserve bourbon. Watson’s email did not specify how many people consumed the alcohol or who the participants were. (It stated that she was told the participants included then-strategist Steve Bannon and then-deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin. Bannon, who has said he stopped drinking years ago, said he didn’t drink at Mar-a-Lago and didn’t recall the episode. Hagin did not respond to requests for comment.)

The bill was sent to the State Department, which objected to covering it. It was then forwarded to the White House, which paid the tab.

The unusual cocktail hour underscores a unique push and pull in the current administration: Donald Trump’s White House pays a bill and Donald Trump’s club reaps the revenue. (It’s unclear if the White House asked any of those drinking to reimburse the government; the White House declined to comment.)

Read more of ProPublica’s stunning reporting here.

The relationship between Trump’s private businesses and government spending has been in question for some time. On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that Democrats in Congress can move forward with their lawsuit alleging that President Trump’s private business violates the Constitution’s ban on gifts or payments from foreign governments.

Updated

Our brilliant colleague Sabrina Siddiqui is reporting that House judiciary chair Jerry Nadler has even more plans:

Updated

Attorney general William Barr may be planning on skipping out on House testimony tomorrow, but House judiciary chair Jerry Nadler plans to meet as usual, according to reports.

Reports: Barr not testifying before House tomorrow

After an arguably “snitty” hearing before the Senate today, it appears that attorney general William Barr will not be testifying before the House judiciary committee on Thursday, as scheduled.

Congressman Doug Collins, the top Republican on the House judiciary committee told the Hill that he does not believe Barr will attend the hearing, nor does he believe he should. Collins accused Democrats of treating Barr “like trash” during Wednesday’s testimony.

“No, I do not [think Barr will attend the hearing] — and I don’t encourage him to,” Collins told The Hill. “If you saw the abuse of power from the chairman [Congressman Jerry Nadler] this morning in the committee hearing, I think that is something that is very disturbing and should be disturbing to all members.”

If you’ll back up a few days, you’ll recall that Barr has been threatening to skip Thursday’s hearing for a while now, voicing objections over the panel’s questioning format.

Updated

Lindsey Graham vows to investigate Obama-era DOJ/FBI

Following the Barr hearing, Senator Lindsey Graham renewed his promise to “investigate whether the Obama-era Justice Department tried to influence the 2016 election in favor of Democrat Hillary Clinton,” the McClatchy News Service is reporting.

Now, Graham is emboldened to proceed with his plans to launch an aggressive committee investigation into the “how they were so in the tank for Clinton and hated Trump’s guts, and how they manipulated the legal system probably for political reasons.

“People in your business pretty much missed a great story” in 2016, Graham said, referring to news reporters. “You’re gonna get a second chance at it.”

Graham was one of the first prominent Republican lawmakers to unapologetically shift gears after the conclusion of the Mueller investigation. Satisfied the report cleared Trump of misconduct — a conclusion with which Democrats disagree — Graham promised his committee would hold hearings on the handling of the Clinton email investigation and surveillance initiative.

Hey all, Vivian Ho taking over for Erin Durkin. Hope we’re not feeling too snitty this fine Wednesday.

Summary

  • Attorney General William Barr faced grilling before the Senate, revealing the depth of tensions between himself and Robert Mueller over the handling of the Russia investigation. Barr called Mueller’s letter, in which the special counsel complained that Barr’s memo did not fully capture the report’s findings, “a bit snitty,” and said the controversy over it is “mind-bendingly bizarre.” He was also critical of Mueller’s decision not to come to a conclusion on whether Donald Trump obstructed justice.
  • Barr struggled to explain his previous testimony to Congress that he was not aware of complaints from Mueller’s team. He said he was talking about members of Mueller’s team as opposed to Mueller himself. Senator Patrick Leahy called his answer “purposely misleading.” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse accused him of “masterful hair splitting.”
  • Barr dodged several direct questions, including whether anyone at the White House has suggested he open an investigation and whether it was appropriate for Donald Trump to tell his White House counsel to lie about a directive to get Mueller fired. “I’m not in the business of determining when lies are told to the American people. I’m in the business of determining whether a crime was committed,” he said at one point.
  • Democratic presidential contenders Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Cory Booker called for Barr to resign.

The US attorney general has issued a blistering takedown of Robert Mueller: the special counsel’s letter to William Barr was, in Barr’s expert assessment, “a bit snitty”.

The word quickly surged to the top of Merriam-Webster’s lookups, the dictionary gurus reported. They define it as “disagreeably ill-tempered”, perhaps an odd description of a man who has maintained a stoic image despite an onslaught of snittiness from the right.

The word’s origins, the dictionary says, are mysterious, though it has apparently been in use since 1978.

It does not appear in the Guardian’s go-to dictionary, Collins. But it may be related to the word “snit”, which Collins defines as an American and Australian word for “a fit of temper” – as in: “The president’s in another snit on Twitter.”

Observers suggested Barr himself, who called controversy over Mueller’s letter “mind-bendingly bizarre”, might in fact be the snitty one.

Senator Bernie Sanders said that Joe Biden’s healthcare plan “doesn’t go anywhere near far enough,” the Hill reports.

“It will be expensive. It will not cover a whole lot of people,” he said.

Biden proposed allowing people to buy into Medicare, whereas Sanders proposes requiring all Americans to be covered by Medicare.

Colorado Senator Michael Bennet is also going to run for president, Colorado Public Radio reports.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer calls for special counsel Robert Mueller to testify before the Senate. Judiciary chairman Lindsey Graham said today he would not call him.

Schumer said Attorney General William Barr “routinely mischaracterized the special counsel’s words.”

“We need to hear from the special counsel himself to sort this out and get the truth,” he said.

Senator Richard Blumenthal says Attorney General William Barr should “probably” resign, Yahoo News reports.

William Barr’s comment today about Robert Mueller’s letter is apparently the first time the word “snitty” has been said on the Congressional record.

Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro will not run for Senate against John Cornyn, he tells Texas Monthly.

The full exchange between Attorney General William Barr and Senator Kamala Harris when she asked him whether Donald Trump or anyone at the White House had asked him to open an investigation into any particular target, via Huffington Post.

Senator Cory Booker calls for William Barr to resign.

Joe Biden did not answer when asked by reporters whether Bill Barr should resign, according to a producer covering his rally today, instead responding with, “Hey! How you doin?”

Senate Judiciary Chairman won't call Mueller to testify

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham says he will not call Robert Mueller to testify before the committee. “I’m not going to do any more. Enough already. It’s over,” he said, according to ABC News.

Updated

Barr dismisses Mueller letter as "snitty"

William Barr called Robert Mueller’s letter objecting to his characterization of the Mueller report “snitty,” and refused to hand over to Congress notes on their subsequent phone conversation.

In response to questions from Senator Richard Blumenthal, Barr said he called Mueller after receiving his critical letter and they spoke for about 10 to 15 minutes.

“I said, ‘Bob, what’s with the letter? Why don’t you just pick up the phone and call me if there’s an issue?’” Barr said.

Mueller was on speaker phone and there were multiple observers in the room including Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, according to Barr.

“He said they were concerned about the way the media was playing this and felt it was important to get out the summaries,” he said. “I asked him if he felt that my letter was misleading or inaccurate, and he said no.”

Blumenthal pointed out that nothing in Mueller’s letter complained about press coverage, but rather said that Barr’s letter did not fully capture the report’s findings and created public confusion.

“His letter was an extraordinary act. A career prosecutor rebuking the Attorney General of the United States, memorializing it in writing,” Blumenthal said.

Barr confirmed that notes were taken on the conversation, and Blumenthal asked if the committee could have them. Barr said no. “Why should you have them?” he said.

He gave his assessment of Mueller’s letter: “The letter’s a bit snitty, and I think it was probably written by one of his staff people.”

With that, the hearing has wrapped up.

William Barr says he does not know whether Robert Mueller reviewed Donald Trump’s tax returns and financial statements.

William Barr argues that the president has the authority to terminate a “groundless” investigation and it would not be improper to do so.

“The president does not have to sit there constitutionally and allow it to run its course. The president could terminate that proceeding and it would not be a corrupt intent, because he was being falsely accused,” Barr said.

“We now know that he was being falsely accused,” Barr added.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand calls for William Barr to resign.

“If you’re hiding something,” Senator Ted Cruz tells William Barr, “you’re doing a very lousy job of hiding it. Because the thing that they’re suggesting you hid, you released to Congress and the American people.” He drew a chuckle from the AG.

Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg met with Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, the Hill reports.

The South Bend, Indiana mayor requested the meeting and they met at Clinton’s office in New York. Clinton has also met with Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Elizabeth Warren.

Leaving the hearing after questioning William Barr, Senator Kamala Harris said that Barr should resign, NBC News reports.

Updated

William Barr said he did not personally review the underlying evidence in order to make his judgment that Donald Trump did not obstruct justice.

“We accepted the statements in the report as the factual record. We did not go underneath it to see whether they were accurate. We accepted it as accurate,” he said.

He said no one in his office reviewed the underlying evidence either.

Under questioning by Senator Kamala Harris, Barr also waivered on whether anyone at the White House had told or suggested that he open an investigation into anyone.

“They have not asked me to open an investigation,” he said. “I wouldn’t say suggested.” Asked if anyone had hinted or inferred that he should open an investigation, he said, “I don’t know.”

Updated

The Washington Post’s fact checkers awarded four Pinocchios to Joe Biden’s claim that “all” of the GOP tax cut “went to folks at the top and corporations.”

About 80% of taxpayers got a tax cut, thought the top 1% got about 20% of the total cuts.

Asked repeatedly by Sen. Mazie Hirono whether he thinks various actions by Donald Trump are “OK” - as opposed to just non-criminal - William Barr does not give a direct answer.

“I’m willing to talk about what’s criminal,” he said, after she asked whether it was OK for the president to tell the White House counsel to lie.

Hirono’s questioning came after she delivered a lengthy attack on Barr in her opening. Chairman Lindsey Graham cut in and told her, “You slandered this man,” and cut off the line of questioning.

Updated

Sen. Mazie Hirono tells Attorney General William Barr he has chosen to act as the president’s lawyer.

“You used every advantage of your office to create the impression that the president was cleared of misconduct,” she said.

“You lied to Congress,” she said of Barr’s testimony that he did not know what objections Mueller’s team had to his summary. “You knew. You lied. And now we know.”

She tells him he should resign.

Yet another Democrat is about to get into the presidential race: Montana Gov. Steve Bullock will announce his bid in two weeks, MTN News reports.

Barr: "I'm not in the business of determining when lies are told to the American people"

AG William Barr declines to say whether Donald Trump lied to the American people when he denied telling the White House counsel to have Robert Mueller fired, and gave a false accounting of a meeting with a Russian national at Trump Tower.

“I’m not in the business of determining when lies are told to the American people. I’m in the business of determining whether a crime was committed,” he said.

Updated

William Barr says he can’t recall whether he provided information about ongoing federal investigations by US attorneys in New York and Virginia that stemmed from the Russia investigation.

“I just don’t recall providing any substantive information about a case,” he said.

He declined to recuse himself from those investigations.

Updated

Senator Richard Blumenthal told William Barr history will judge him harshly.

Senator Chris Coons says Barr’s summary served to “obscure” Donald Trump’s inappropriate actions rather than giving the American people the full truth.

Trump’s demands to the White House counsel to fire Mueller were “alarming and unacceptable,” he said, and “None of that was in your letter.”

“A critical three weeks passed” before the report was released and revealed a “whole range of inappropriate actions by the president and his core team,” Coons said.

Barr again offers this rationale on why the president’s behavior did not add up to a pattern of obstruction: “It would be difficult for the government to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Updated

Hillary Clinton hits Donald Trump’s move to impose fees on migrants applying for asylum.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, chair of the House Oversight Committee, called the White House’s refusal to turn over documents related to security clearance “the latest example of the President’s widespread and growing obstruction of Congress.”

“The lengths to which President Trump and his aides are going to keep this information from Congress raise grave concerns about what they are trying to hide—and why,” he said, the Wall Street Journal reports. “The Committee will consider its next step after consulting carefully with our Members.”

Barr: Controversy over Mueller letter is "mind-bendingly bizarre"

Attorney General William Barr called the controversy over his handling of the Mueller report “mind-bendingly bizarre.”

He’s arguing the controversy over Mueller’s objections to his summary should be moot because he has since released the Mueller report.

“That’s why I think this whole thing is sort of mind-bendingly bizarre. I made clear from the beginning that I was putting out the report, as much of the report as I could, and it was clear it was going to take three weeks or so, maybe four, to do that,” Barr said.

Updated

Former FBI director James Comey is out with an op-ed arguing that Donald Trump has corrupted William Barr, and others around him who lack “inner strength.”

“Amoral leaders have a way of revealing the character of those around them. Sometimes what they reveal is inspiring. For example, James Mattis, the former secretary of defense, resigned over principle, a concept so alien to Mr. Trump that it took days for the president to realize what had happened, before he could start lying about the man,” Comey wrote. “But more often, proximity to an amoral leader reveals something depressing. I think that’s at least part of what we’ve seen with Bill Barr and Rod Rosenstein. Accomplished people lacking inner strength can’t resist the compromises necessary to survive Mr. Trump and that adds up to something they will never recover from. It takes character like Mr. Mattis’s to avoid the damage, because Mr. Trump eats your soul in small bites.”

He reads into the thought process of Trump aides: “Of course, to stay, you must be seen as on his team, so you make further compromises. You use his language, praise his leadership, tout his commitment to values. And then you are lost. He has eaten your soul.”

Updated

Elizabeth Warren calls for Attorney General William Barr to resign.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, who is running against Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, says that if he were attorney general he would have pursued an indictment of Trump for obstructions of justice based on the evidence set out in the Mueller report.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said US military action in Venezeula is possible amid the escalating crisis there.

“The president has been crystal clear and incredibly consistent—military action is possible—if that’s what’s required—that’s what the United States will do,” he told Fox Business Network on Wednesday. “We are trying to do everything we can to avoid violence… We’d prefer a peaceful transition of government there where Maduro leaves and a new election is held.”

Republican senators have been spending a lot of their time at the William Barr hearing talking about Hillary Clinton.

Some context from the Washington Post on the narrative pushed by Senator Lindsey Graham in his opening statement.

The White House sent a request to Congress for $4.5 billion in emergency spending for the US-Mexico border, the Washington Post reports.

The request includes $3.3 billion for humanitarian assistance and $1.1 billion for border operations.

The request is in addition to the billions Trump has vowed to spend on a border wall without Congressional approval through an emergency declaration.

Alabama Senator Doug Jones, one of three Democrats who voted to confirm William Barr as attorney general, told CNN he is “incredibly disappointed” in Barr and “getting close” to losing confidence in him.

Among white evangelical Protestants, 55% say they prefer to see Donald Trump as the Republican party’s nominee in 2020, according to a new Morning Consult poll - 16 percentage points less than the share of self-identified Republicans who said the same.

The poll offered the options of Trump, Mike Pence, or some other Republican. 18% of evangelicals picked Pence, 8% said they’d prefer a different Republican, and 20% were not sure.

While the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Attorney General William Barr - now on an hour-long break - the House Judiciary Committee voted to allow an additional hour of questioning for Barr’s scheduled testimony there tomorrow, according to NBC News.

The extra hour would be dedicated to questioning by lawyers from both parties, and is the subject of dispute with Barr, who has threatened not to show up if staff are allowed to ask questions.

Chairman Jerry Nadler said:

“According to the Special Counsel’s letter, the Attorney General’s mischaracterization of the Report before releasing it to the public, created ‘public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation.’ The Special Counsel went on to write that ‘this threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.’ In light of this news, it is critical that we question the Attorney General on the Committee’s terms.

“Committee staff questioning has long been an important, if underutilized, aspect of Congressional oversight that is in accordance with House rules and past precedent. The House Judiciary Committee has permitted Committee staff to question witnesses in the past, under both Democratic and Republican majorities, during both public hearings and private transcribed interviews.

“For example, Committee staff participated in questioning witnesses during impeachment inquiries into President Nixon, President Clinton, and Judge Thomas Porteous. And last Congress, during the Republican-led investigation into the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, Committee staff questioned several FBI and DOJ officials, including then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, former FBI Director James Comey, and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

“Some have expressed the concern that it is somehow inappropriate for Committee staff to question a sitting Attorney General. There is ample House precedent, however, for Committee staff to question sitting cabinet level and Senate-confirmed officials during a hearing.

“The most salient precedent for this occurred in 1987, during the House and Senate Hearings on the Iran Contra scandal, when Committee staff questioned sitting Attorney General Ed Meese. Committee staff also questioned Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Secretary of State George Shultz.

“I would also note that in 1997, under a Republican Majority, at a hearing held before the House Oversight Committee with Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis Freeh that Committee agreed to proceed under the rules to permit ‘the chairman and ranking minority member [to] allocate time to committee counsel, as they deem appropriate, for extended questioning.’

“On a final note, there are reports that the Attorney General will refuse to appear tomorrow if this Committee proceeds with staff questioning. In spite of all the precedent I have cited, I would note that Congress does not need to justify to the Attorney General, the Department of Justice, or any other part of the Executive Branch the manner in which it chooses to conducts its own proceedings. And no witness can simply dictate to this Committee the manner in which he or she is questioned when it is fully in accordance with House rules.”

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse asked Attorney General William Barr about his claim that there was “spying” against Donald Trump’s campaign.

“I’m not going to abjure the use of the word spying,” Barr said, noting he previously worked for the CIA. “I don’t think the word spying has any pejorative connotation at all.”

“Spying is a good English word that in fact doesn’t have synonyms,” Barr said, explaining that it encompasses “all forms of covert intelligence collection.”

“I’m not suggesting any pejorative, and I use it frequently,” he said.

Whitehouse pointed out that the term “spying” is not typically used by the Justice Department to refer to authorized surveillance. “It’s commonly used by me,” Barr replied.

Senator and presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand proposed a plan for public financing of elections.

The plan would give every voter up to $600 in “Democracy Dollars” which they could donate to federal candidates of their choice, NBC News reports:

Under Gillibrand’s plan, every eligible voter could register for vouchers to donate up to $100 in a primary election and $100 in a general election each cycle, either all at once or in $10 increments to one or more candidates over time. Each participant would get a separate $200 pool for House, Senate and presidential contests for a total maximum donation of $600 for those federal offices.

There would be strings attached for both donors and candidates. The money could go only to elections in the donor’s state, although they could be used for House candidates outside the voter’s district.

Politicians would face much tighter limits on donations. To be eligible to receive “Democracy Dollars,” a candidate would have to voluntarily agree to forgo any contributions larger than $200 per donor. That’s a big drop from the current maximum of $2,800 per primary cycle and $2,800 for the general election.

Attorney General William Barr compared Robert Mueller’s frustrations to a prosecutor who feels the verdict of a trial did not reflect all his great work.

“My answer to that is I’m not trying to capture everything, I’m just trying to state the verdict,” he said.

Senator Dick Durbin pressed him again on why he denied knowing about the Mueller team’s concerns. “It was clear he had genuine concerns about what you had said and done,” Durbin said.

Barr also left open the possibility Donald Trump would invoke executive privilege to prevent former White House counsel Donald McGahn from testifying before Congress. “That’s a call for the president to make,” he said. “I assume he’d be testifying about privileged matters.”

Updated

Senator Patrick Leahy asks Barr why he testified that he did not know about special counsel Robert Mueller’s team’s concerns about the summary of his report, when he had spoken to Mueller about those concerns.

Barr makes another fine distinction here: he was talking about press reports that members of Mueller’s team were expressing frustration about the summary, as opposed to Mueller’s own concerns. “I don’t know what that refers to at all. I talked directly to Bob Mueller, not members of his team,” he said.

“I feel your answer was purposely misleading,” Leahy said.

Updated

Senator Dianne Feinstein questioned Bill Barr on the episode documented in the Mueller report where Donald Trump told White House counsel Don McGahn to have Mueller removed from his post, and then told McGahn to deny it.

Barr says this does not add up to obstruction of justice, relying on the distinction between ordering Mueller’s firing and ordering him to be removed for conflicts of interest. The difference, he claims, is that Mueller would have been replaced with a new special counsel if he were removed for conflicts.

Updated

As Attorney General William Barr testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee, minority leader Chuck Schumer is questioning his fitness for office.

Attorney General William Barr, testifying before the Senate, says he offered special counsel Robert Mueller the chance to review Barr’s letter summarizing his report. “He declined,” he said.

In a subsequent phone call, Mueller pushed him to release executive summaries of sections of the report, which Barr declined to do. “He was very clear with me that he was not suggesting that we had misrepresented his report,” Barr said.

Barr said he was “frankly surprised” when Mueller told him he would not reach a conclusion on whether Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice.

“We did not understand exactly why the special counsel was not reaching a decision,” Barr said, adding that Mueller did not clarify.

He said that he and deputy AG Rod Rosenstein then decided they would reach a conclusion on their own.

“It’s a binary decision: is there enough evidence to show a crime, and do we believe a crime has been committed,” he said. “We don’t conduct criminal investigations just to collect information and put it out to the public. We do so to make a decision.”

Updated

Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham said in his opening remarks that the Mueller report found there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

In fact, Mueller’s report makes clear that he is not weighing in on the concept of “collusion,” which is not a legal term. Instead, he investigated whether there was criminal conspiracy, and did not find sufficient evidence to establish that there was one.

Graham went on to devote much of his opening to discussing the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton. As for Mueller’s findings, which he acknowledged he had not read in full, he said: “For me it is over.”

Updated

Senator Lindsey Graham, chair of the judiciary committee, says he has read an unredacted version of the Mueller report and it did not change any conclusions compared to the public version of the reports.

Opening the hearing where the attorney general, William Barr, is set to testify, Graham said that Robert Mueller has a reputation as an “outstanding lawyer and a man of the law”.

“Mr Mueller was the right guy to do this job,” he said.

Updated

An agreement has been reached to have special counsel Robert Mueller testify before the House Judiciary Committee, Reuters reports.

Chairman Jerry Nadler said he has agreed to testify and the date is to be determined.

Mueller's full letter to Barr released

House Democrats have published the full letter sent by Robert Mueller to Attorney General Bill Barr objecting to his characterization of the Mueller report.

Updated

Representative Jerry Nadler, chair of the House judiciary committee, said that Bill Barr “seems to have testified non-truthfully to the Senate and to the House.”

Barr, testifying before the Senate, said he did not know whether special counsel Robert Mueller supported his conclusion that Donald Trump did not obstruct justice. But it was revealed Tuesday that Mueller sent a letter to Barr objecting to his characterizations.

“He clearly misled the American people,” Nadler told reporters on Capitol Hill in comments aired by CNN.

Updated

Taxpayers are picking up the tab for Trump administration staffers to eat, drink, and stay at Mar a Lago, with the revenue going to Donald Trump’s companies, according to bills obtained by ProPublica.

The charges include more than $1,000 for a drinking session at Mar-a-Lago’s Library Bar during a visit by a Chinese delegation, where aides poured their own drinks after asking the bartender to leave. The White House paid the bill after the State Department objected to covering it.

Roy Moore is considering another run for Senate in Alabama and sent out a fundraising pitch citing the survival of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh as a sign he can make a comeback.

Moore’s 2017 campaign flamed out because of allegations of sexual misconduct with underage girls. He lost to Senator Doug Jones.

The Washington Post reports that he sent out a fundraising pitch signed by his wife Kayla Moore saying he is “seriously considering another run for the United States Senate!”

“It was no strange coincidence that only 10 months later these same false and scurrilous tactics would again be used in the midst of a very important Supreme Court nomination process of Brett Kavanaugh in 2018,” the message says. “Judge Kavanaugh would survive to be appointed to that high court.”

Kavanaugh was confirmed to the US Supreme Court despite allegations of sexual assault when he was in high school.

One of the many accounts Donald Trump retweeted this morning changed its username to “Fuck Donald Trump” after getting shared by the president, the Daily Beast notes.

The White House has rejected the House Oversight Committee’s request for documents about how it grants security clearances.

CNN reports that the White House sent a nine-page letter refusing the request.

“It is highly improper for the Committee to induce or encourage the unauthorized disclosure of confidential information in order to launch public political attacks on individuals as part of advancing a partisan political agenda,” wrote White House Counsel Pat Cipollone. “Harassing and seeking to punish political opponents based on their political beliefs is not a valid exercise of Congress’s investigative powers.”

The committee launched an investigation into the security clearances of officials including presidential daughter and son in law Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn who is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to federal crimes.

Donald Trump has been very, very busy on Twitter this morning.

Starting before 6am, Trump tweeted another attack on the fire fighters’ union for its endorsement of Joe Biden, and then retweeted more than 60 - yes, that’s over five dozen - messages dumping on the union and criticizing Biden.

After his retweet spree, the president went on to watch some morning TV and tweet along.

Attorney general William Barr to testify before Senate

Good morning. Attorney general William Barr is set to testify this morning before the Senate judiciary committee, a day after it was revealed that special counsel Robert Mueller sent him a letter objecting to Barr’s portrayal of Mueller’s report on the Russia investigation.

Barr’s summary “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office’s work and conclusions”, Mueller wrote in the letter obtained by the Washington Post. “There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the special counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.”

Some Democrats are now calling for Barr’s removal. The hearing is set to kick off at 10am. Stay tuned.

Updated

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