Senate Dem: Barr’s credibility was ‘shredded’

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Thursday said Attorney General William Barr’s credibility was “shredded” during a hearing on Capitol Hill.

“His credibility was shredded yesterday,” Blumenthal said on CNN’s “New Day” while explaining why he is calling for Barr to resign.

{mosads}“The biggest argument for resignation isn’t from United States Sen. Richard Blumenthal or any other members of Congress, it’s from Robert Mueller himself, that scathing rebuke in Mueller’s letter to Barr.” 

“He’s acting as the president’s personal defense lawyer, not as the people’s lawyer,” Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, added.

“His credibility was shredded yesterday.”@SenBlumenthal says Attorney General William Barr should resign after his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Mueller report. https://t.co/NjEBiWoa85 pic.twitter.com/bGNNyRKOoI

— CNN (@CNN) May 2, 2019

Several prominent Democrats have called for Barr to resign following revelations that Robert Mueller wrote to the attorney general voicing concerns of his characterization of the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The attorney general sent Congress a four-page memo summarizing the report in March, nearly a month before the report on Mueller’s probe was released to the public. The memo was widely lambasted by Democrats, who accused Barr of acting as President Trump‘s personal attorney, rather than the American people’s attorney.

Barr testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday about his handling of Mueller’s report.

He said that he did not review the underlying evidence in Mueller’s report before he concluded that the special counsel’s findings did not reach the threshold to charge Trump with obstructing justice.

Mueller’s probe did not find evidence to conclude conspiracy or coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin during the 2016 election. But the report noted that Mueller could not “conclusively determine” that no criminal conduct occurred in regard to obstruction of justice.