WASHINGTON--Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday canceled plans to testify before the House of Representatives about his handling of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, further inflaming tensions between U.S. President Donald Trump and Democrats in Congress.
Barr was due to face the Democratic-controlled House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, but pulled out after the two sides were unable to agree on the format for the hearing. "It's simply part of the administration's complete stonewalling of Congress," Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler told reporters.
Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said Nadler's proposal to have committee lawyers question Barr was "unprecedented and unnecessary," saying questions should come from lawmakers.
The move came shortly after Barr spent more than four hours before the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee where he fended off Democratic criticism of his decision to clear Trump of criminal obstruction of justice and faulted Special Counsel Robert Mueller for not reaching a conclusion of his own on the issue.
In his first congressional testimony since releasing a redacted version of Mueller's report on April 18, Barr also dismissed Mueller's complaints that he initially disclosed the special counsel's conclusions on March 24 in an incomplete way that caused public confusion.
Illustrating tensions between the two men, Barr described as "a bit snitty" a March 27 letter from Mueller in which the special counsel urged him to release broader summaries of his findings - a step Barr rejected. Trump seized on Barr's March 24 letter to declare that he had been fully exonerated.
Several Democrats on the Senate committee called for Barr's resignation. Democrats have accused Barr of trying to protect the Republican president, who is seeking re-election next year. They pressed Barr on why he decided two days after receiving the 448-page document from Mueller in March to conclude that Trump had not unlawfully sought to obstruct the 22-month investigation.
"I don't think the government had a prosecutable case," Barr said.
The report detailed extensive contacts between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Moscow and the campaign's expectation that it would benefit from Russia's actions, which included hacking and propaganda to boost Trump and harm Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. The report also detailed a series of actions Trump took to try to impede the investigation.
Mueller, a former FBI director, concluded there was insufficient evidence to show a criminal conspiracy and opted not to make a conclusion on whether Trump committed obstruction of justice, but pointedly did not exonerate him. Barr has said he and Rod Rosenstein, the Justice Department's No. 2 official, then determined there was not enough evidence to charge Trump with obstruction.
Barr often appeared to excuse or rationalize Trump's conduct, asserting that the president may not necessarily have been trying to derail Mueller's investigation. Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono told Barr that he had sacrificed a "once-decent reputation for the grifter and liar that sits in the Oval Office."
Senator Lindsey Graham, the committee's Republican chairman, rushed to Barr's defense, telling Hirono: "You've slandered this man."
