WASHINGTON _ The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee excoriated the Trump administration Thursday for failing to comply with congressional oversight as Attorney General William P. Barr refused to show up at a hearing on the Russia investigation.
"If we don't stand up to him together, today, we risk forever losing the power to stand up to any president in the future. The very system of government of United States ... the system of not having a president as a dictator is very much at stake," Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y) said.
Barr, who testified for several hours to the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, backed out of the House hearing Tuesday night over Nadler's demands that in addition to members of Congress, the panel's lawyers also ask some of the questions.
Kerri Kupec, the Justice Department spokeswoman, said Barr had declined to appear because "Nadler's insistence on having staff question the attorney general, a Senate-confirmed Cabinet member, is inappropriate."
Without Barr attending, the hearing was brief yet combative. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) brought a bucket of KFC chicken to imply Barr was a coward.
Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), the committee's top Republican, blamed Democrats for blowing their opportunity to question the attorney general as senators did on Wednesday.
"We're not getting that opportunity today because the stunt and the circus continues over here," he said.
Nadler defended his stance on Thursday as an empty table with Barr's name on it sat before lawmakers.
"Given the attorney general's lack of candor before other congressional committees, I believe my colleagues and I were right to insist on the extended questioning," he said.
Nadler ended the hearing by saying "we will make sure that no president becomes a monarch."
As he smacked the gavel, Republicans shouted objections that Nadler ignored.
Barr testified for five hours before the Senate panel, facing a barrage of questions from Democrats about his handling of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
They criticized the attorney general's conclusion that President Trump hadn't obstructed justice in the matter, and accused Barr of distorting the Meuller report's conclusions and the evidence to help protect the president.
They pointed to a newly revealed letter that Mueller sent to Barr on March 27, complaining that the attorney general's summary of the findings failed to "fully capture the context, nature and substance" of the inquiry and contributed to "public confusion about critical aspects of the results."
In response, Barr said the controversy was "mind-bendingly bizarre" because he released the partly redacted 448-page report on April 18, allowing Congress and the public to assess the evidence Mueller assembled.
"I wasn't hiding the ball," he said.
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