William Barr Testimony Updates: ‘Spying Did Occur’ on Trump Campaign
• Attorney General William P. Barr, appearing before Congress for a second straight day on Wednesday, said the government spied on the Trump campaign and said he would look into whether any rules were violated.
• Mr. Barr signaled he was open sharing more information with lawmakers than is released to the public and that he “hoped” to make the redacted Mueller report public “next week.”
• Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee is taking up the confirmation hearing of Jeffrey A. Rosen, President Trump’s nominee to succeed Rod J. Rosenstein, who appointed and oversaw the special counsel, as deputy attorney general.
Barr will review potential “spying” on the Trump campaign.
With the Russia investigation complete, Mr. Barr said he was preparing to review “both the genesis and the conduct of intelligence activities directed at the Trump campaign,” including what he called “spying” by American intelligence agencies.
“I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal,” Mr. Barr said, adding that he believed “spying did occur.” Mr. Trump and his allies have accused the F.B.I. and other government officials of abusing their power and cooking up the Russia investigation to sabotage the president.
“I am not suggesting that those rules were violated, but I think it’s important to look at them,” Mr. Barr said. Later he said he wanted to ensure that there was no “unauthorized surveillance.”
It was not immediately clear what Mr. Barr was referring to, and he did not present evidence to back up his statement. The F.B.I. obtained a secret surveillance warrant on a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page, after he left the campaign, and reports have suggested it used at least one confidential informer to collect information on campaign associates.
Mr. Barr said that he will work with the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, to examine the origins of the bureau’s counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign, and that he would soon set up a team for that effort. He noted that Congress and the Justice Department’s inspector general have already completed investigations of that matter, and that after reviewing those investigations he would be able to see whether there are any “remaining questions to be addressed.”
Pressed by Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, if he had “specific evidence of anything improper in the counterintelligence investigation of the 2016 election,” Mr. Barr said he did not.
“I have no specific evidence that I would cite right now,” he said. “I do have questions about it.”
Barr gave up a few more details about Mueller’s report.
Under intense questioning from Democratic senators, Mr. Barr further pulled back the curtain on the Justice Department’s handling of the special counsel investigation, though only by a few inches.
Mr. Barr shed some additional light on Mr. Mueller’s decision not reach a prosecutorial decision about whether Mr. Trump criminally obstructed the investigation and his own decision to conclude in his letter to Congress delivering the investigation’s conclusions last month that the evidence did not meet that bar.
Mr. Barr said he had spoken with Mr. Mueller about why he did not reach a decision on obstruction of justice, but declined to offer details of their conversations. The attorney general said that Mr. Mueller did not explicitly ask that Congress be allowed to judge the evidence and decide for itself, nor did he say that the attorney general should.
“But that is generally how the Department of Justice works,” Mr. Barr said, saying that the department’s job is to make prosecutorial decisions — and he had.
“I am looking forward to explaining my decision that I briefly outlined in the March 24 letter, but I don’t think I can do it until the report is out,” he said.
The redacted Mueller report may be released “next week,” Barr says.
On the timing of the redacted report’s release, Mr. Barr said Wednesday that he “hoped” to make it public “next week.” The answer differed slightly from what he told House lawmakers on Tuesday, that he intended to put out the report “within a week.”
He said Justice Department lawyers and members of Mr. Mueller’s team, who are reviewing the report for sensitive information to black out before release, would not remove information that would harm the “reputational interests” of Mr. Trump. Mr. Barr also said that he had not overruled Mr. Mueller’s team on any proposed redactions from the Mueller report, and had not discussed with the White House what he was blacking out.
Barr is willing to work with Congress on redacted information.
Democrats in the House have slammed Mr. Barr for what they view as his refusal to share the investigation’s underlying evidence and material he may redact from the report. But Mr. Barr told senators on Wednesday he would be willing to re-evaluate that decision to try to accommodate lawmakers’ concerns.
“I intend to take up with the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, the chairmen and ranking members of each, what other areas they feel they have a need to have access to the information and see if I can work to accommodate that,” he said.
Democratic lawmakers argue that they need such material so they can fully understand the implications of Mr. Mueller’s findings and judge whether or not Mr. Barr had fairly represented what was found. In the House, they have already approved a subpoena to issue to try to compel the release of this kind of information.
Senators are pushing Barr for more on the Mueller report.
House Democrats occasionally succeeded on Tuesday in getting Mr. Barr to reveal or hint at something more about the coming report from the special counsel. Democratic senators and a few Republicans wanted more.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, signaled she would ask about a report from The New York Times revealing that some of Mr. Mueller’s investigators have complained that Mr. Barr failed to fully represent their findings and that they were more damaging for the president than the attorney general indicated.
“I am concerned by recent media reports that those working on the special counsel team glossed over the severity of the actions of those in the White House, including the president,” she said, pushing Mr. Barr to make the full report public.
Senator Jerry Moran, Republican of Kansas and the leader of the Appropriations subcommittee that funds the Justice Department, asked Mr. Barr to clarify whether the report released would be the document Mr. Mueller delivered to him or the attorney general’s own recasting of it.
Mr. Barr divulged several new details about the report on Tuesday. For example, even though Justice Department officials had previously said the White House had not been shown the Mueller report, Mr. Barr was unwilling to confirm that — raising the possibility that since then, the Justice Department may have briefed Mr. Trump’s inner circle about its contents. He also indicated that he was not willing to petition a judge for a court order permitting him to show grand jury information to the House Judiciary Committee.
Democrats were still unsatisfied.
“You put your conclusion out there and now you refuse to talk about any basis of your report,” said Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland.
Trump says there is nothing to clear up: “I won.”
Interest in the report remains intense among congressional lawmakers. President Trump, not so much.
Speaking to reporters as he left the White House on Wednesday, the president slammed the investigation as an illegal “attempted coup.” But he said he had “won” and could care less about the report itself.
“I have not seen the Mueller report,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “I have not read the Mueller report. I won. No collusion, no obstruction. I won. Everybody knows I won.”
He continued: “As far as I’m concerned I don’t care about the Mueller report. I’ve been totally exonerated.”
The report, which runs nearly 400 pages, is likely to be less black and white. Mr. Barr has said Mr. Mueller did not find the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to undermine the 2016 election, but he has said that the special counsel’s team did not reach a prosecutorial decision about whether Mr. Trump criminally obstructed the investigation. Mr. Barr, assessing the evidence for himself, concluded the evidence did not meet that bar.
Rosen vows to keep politics from improperly influencing his decisions
Meanwhile, at the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Mr. Rosen, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, pressed the nominee to commit to allowing all pending criminal matters related to the special counsel’s investigation to proceed with improper political interference.
“If I am confirmed, I would expect in all prosecutorial matters to proceed on the facts and the law and not any improper political influences,” Mr. Rosen replied.
Ms. Klobuchar did not name which matters she had in mind, though several cases are still working their way through the court system. But Mr. Mueller’s office obtained the indictment of Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime informal adviser to President Trump, and is handing that matter off to regular prosecutors to bring to trial. The Mueller team also investigated other matters, like the finances of the Trump inauguration committee, which continue to be investigated elsewhere.