Hirono: White House is a ‘moral dead zone’

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) on Friday said that the White House is a “moral dead zone” just days after her rebuke of Attorney General William Barr in a Senate hearing.

“I’ve characterized what goes on at the White House as a moral dead zone,” she said in an interview with MSNBC. 

{mosads}”You enter that dead zone and you end up with an attorney general who can’t even tell me that telling the White House counsel to lie is not OK,” she added. “He can’t answer that.”

She also reiterated Friday her belief that Barr “lied to Congress.”

Barr testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which Hirono is a member, on Wednesday.

During his testimony, Hirono grilled him on a series of topics related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and report, including asking Barr if he thought it was appropriate for President Trump to instruct White House counsel Don McGahn to lie. 

Also on Wednesday House Democrats published a letter Mueller wrote to Barr blasting Barr’s four-page summary of Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether Trump obstructed justice.

In the letter, dated three days after Barr’s summary, Mueller said that Barr created “public confusion about critical aspects of the results” of the Russia probe. 

Hirono, following the hearing on Wednesday, led a group of Democratic senators asking the Justice Department’s watchdog to investigate Barr over his handling of the report.