“Is it permissible for someone to be paid by someone who’s basically an enemy of the United States and then can that person just volunteer” for a campaign, Mr. Sasse asked Mr. Barr.
Mr. Barr said it depended on the details. “It’s a slippery area,” he said.
Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, mocked his Republican counterparts for fixating on Mrs. Clinton more than two years after she lost the election. “I've been listening carefully to my Republican colleagues on the other side, and it appears that they are going to go work together and coordinate the so-called ‘lock-her-up’ defense,” he said.
The House Judiciary Committee votes to allow lawyers to question Barr.
While attention was trained on the Senate, the House moved forward with its own confrontations. The Democrat-led Judiciary Committee voted to allow staff lawyers from both parties to question Mr. Barr during testimony scheduled for Thursday. Mr. Barr and committee Republicans have objected to that arrangement, and the attorney general has threatened not to show up for questioning.
With Democrats not backing down, it remains to be seen if he will.
“Attorney General Barr publicly committed to being transparent regarding the special counsel’s investigation,” said the committee’s chairman, Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York. “He should welcome the opportunity to speak candidly and at length before the House Judiciary Committee and the American people.”
At the same time, House Democrats are waiting to see if the Justice Department meets a Wednesday deadline set by the Judiciary Committee to turn over a copy of the Mueller report without redactions and all the evidence collected by Mr. Mueller. They already issued a subpoena for the material, and could escalate a conflict with the Justice Department if it is not handed over.
Barr testimony spotlights the role of the attorney general.
Several moments of Mr. Barr’s testimony highlighted tensions over the role of the attorney general: whether as the chief law enforcement officer, an attorney general is supposed to render independent judgments based solely on the facts and the law without taking politics into account, or whether, as a political appointee in an administration, he or she is supposed to function as part of the president’s team.
In explaining his handling of the investigation, including his decision to pronounce Mr. Trump cleared of obstruction of justice, Mr. Barr repeatedly put forward the best interpretation of events from the president’s point of view, playing down episodes that Mr. Mueller had spotlighted as potential obstruction of justice. He likewise stuck by his claim that the president fully cooperated under challenge by Democrats.