President Trump on Wednesday accused Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) of being “probably very nasty” to Attorney General William Barr during his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Trump told Fox Business’s Trish Regan that Harris and other lawmakers who are running for president were hard on Barr during the hearing for “political points.”
“She was probably very nasty,” he said of Harris, who grilled Barr on a number of points related to Barr’s handling of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
While being questioned by Harris, Barr said that he did not look at the underlying evidence in Mueller’s report before deciding not to pursue an obstruction of justice charge against Trump.
This is the second time in less than a week that Trump has referred to Harris as “nasty.” Speaking to Fox News’s Sean Hannity last week, Trump said the California Democrat has “a little bit of a nasty wit, but that might be it.”
Harris, responding to the comment on Thursday morning, said “God only knows” why Trump uses that word.
“We have a president of the United States whose primary interest … has been to obstruct justice,” she told CNN. “My primary interest is to pursue justice. You can call that anything you want, but I think that’s what the American people want in a leader.”
In his comments Wednesday evening, the president also slammed the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee who are running against him for president, saying they were “ranting and raving like lunatics” at the hearing.
“You have Bill Barr, highly respected, great attorney general, and he’s got to take the abuse from people that are running for office,” he said while appearing on Fox Business. “They don’t care about this. They’re just looking for political points.”
He also slammed calls for Barr’s resignation as “so ridiculous.”
Barr on Wednesday testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the day after committee Democrats released a letter Mueller wrote to Barr criticizing Barr’s characterization of the report.
Mueller’s letter, dated March 27, said Barr’s summary of the report from three days prior created “public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation.”
Weeks after Barr sent his summary of the findings to Congress, the Justice Department released a redacted version of Mueller’s report.
Three Democrats who are running for president in 2020 — Harris, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) — sit on the Judiciary Committee. Booker and Harris were among a group of 2020 candidates who on Tuesday and Wednesday called for Barr to resign.
Updated May 2 at 10 a.m.