WASHINGTON -- William Barr, President Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general, assured senators at his confirmation hearing Tuesday that he will permit the special counsel, Robert Mueller, to complete the Russia investigation and said he is determined to resist any pressure from Trump to use law enforcement agencies for political purposes.
Barr pointed to his age and background -- he also served as attorney general from 1991 to 1993 under President George H.W. Bush -- as buffers to potential intrusions on the Justice Department's traditional independence. He suggested he had no further political aspirations that might cloud his judgment, the way that future ambitions might give pause to a younger nominee, and said he had the experience to fight political interference.
"I am in a position in life where I can provide the leadership necessary to protect the independence and reputation of the department," Barr, 68, told the Senate Judiciary Committee, adding that he would not hesitate to resign if Trump pushed him to act improperly.
"I will not be bullied into doing anything I think is wrong -- by anybody, whether it be editorial boards or Congress or the president," Barr said. "I'm going to do what I think is right."
He also pledged that he would refuse any order from Trump either to fire Mueller without good cause in violation of regulations or to rescind those rules first.
Over hours of testimony, Barr calmly displayed a fluent grasp of policy and smoothly responded to senators of both parties, demonstrating his long experience as a Washington hand and member of the Republican legal establishment. He is widely expected to be confirmed, given that Republicans control the Senate. Even some Democrats have been looking to move on from acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, who declined to remove himself from the Russia investigation and has faced scrutiny over his private dealings.
Asked by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., why as a "rational person" he would want the job after seeing Trump's "unrelenting criticism" of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Barr portrayed himself as an institutionalist.
"Because I love the department and all its components, including the FBI," Barr said. "I think they are critical institutions that are essential to preserving the rule of law, which is the heartbeat of this country."
Trump repeatedly excoriated Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation, which Trump has called a "witch hunt," and pushed him to open criminal investigations into the president's political adversaries, such as Hillary Clinton.
Barr's testimony also touched on many other issues.
Regarding Trump's demand for funding for a border wall, which has prompted the longest government shutdown in American history, he expressed qualified support for expanding barriers along the Mexican border where they could be part of "common-sense" immigration enforcement. But he sidestepped questions about whether Trump could lawfully redirect military funds to build a wall without congressional authorization, as the president has threatened to invoke emergency powers to do.
Asked by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., about remarks he made in 2005 defending the George W. Bush administration's "enhanced interrogation techniques" program and the idea that it was lawful to use "pain, discomfort and other things to make people talk" so long as it does not cross the line to torture, Barr said he would obey and uphold a 2015 law restricting American interrogators to using only those techniques listed in the Army Field Manual.
Trump remained out of sight at the White House but kept an eye on the news coverage of the hearing and told aides he was pleased with how Barr was handling himself, said two White House officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal conversations.
The hearing repeatedly returned to Russia's attempts to manipulate the American election process and the ongoing investigation by Mueller into Moscow's campaign of subversion -- and possible links to Trump and his associates.
Early in the hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the committee's new chairman, brought up the FBI's newly revealed counterintelligence investigation into whether the president was working with the Russians, asking incredulously whether Barr had "heard of such a thing in all the time you have been associated with the department."
When Barr answered that he had not, Graham sought and obtained his assurance that he would look into who opened the investigation into the president at the FBI or the Justice Department and to tell the committee whether it was appropriate.
Later, Barr also defended as "entirely proper" his decision to write an unsolicited, lengthy memo to the Trump administration legal team in June arguing that laws against obstruction of justice cannot criminalize a president's use of his constitutional powers -- like when Trump fired James Comey as FBI director.
Insisting he had not been trying to "ingratiate" himself with the Trump administration by writing the memo, Barr downplayed it as based on mere speculation about the basis for Mueller's obstruction inquiry. He said he believed that other potential actions by a president, like witness tampering, would be a legitimate basis for an obstruction investigation.
Feinstein told Barr that the memo showed "a determined effort, I thought, to undermine Bob Mueller." The nominee told senators he was merely trying to advise Justice Department officials against "stretching the statute beyond what was intended" to conclude that the president had obstructed justice.
In any case, he repeatedly said he would let Mueller finish his work.
"I believe the Russians interfered or attempted to interfere with the election, and I think we have to get to the bottom of it," Barr said during the nine-hour hearing.
The nominee also appeared to emphasize a softer vision of presidential power than the unusually expansive view he has largely advanced throughout his career -- for example, previously portraying the president instead of the attorney general as the nation's top law-enforcement official who wields unfettered power to "start or stop a law enforcement proceeding."
His philosophy on executive authority has raised the question of whether his permissive theories would unleash Trump. But in several ways on Tuesday, Barr appeared to walk back or qualify some of his earlier writings, putting greater emphasis on the Justice Department's independence and legal limits on the presidency.
For example, Barr said that if a president directed the Justice Department to close an investigation to protect himself or his family, that would violate the Constitution. And asked by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., whether a president could pardon someone in exchange for a promise not to incriminate him, Barr said, "That would be a crime."
He also pledged to seek the advice of ethics lawyers in the Justice Department about whether he should recuse himself from overseeing the Russia inquiry, while stopping short of committing to accepting their recommendation. Late last year, Justice Department ethics officials recommended to Whitaker that he recuse from overseeing that investigation, but Whitaker declined to do so.
The fate of Mueller's findings -- an expected report -- was a recurring topic. Barr said that Mueller's report to the attorney general would be "confidential" but that the attorney general would then produce his own report to Congress based on that material. He said he intended to be as transparent as possible given grand-jury secrecy rules but that he would not let the White House edit or change it, as the president's lawyer Rudy Giuliani had suggested might occur.
"That will not happen," Barr said.
Barr said Mueller, whom he portrayed as a longtime friend, must be permitted to resolve the investigation.
"It is in the best interest of everyone -- the president, Congress and, most importantly, the American people -- that this matter be resolved by allowing the special counsel to complete his work," Barr said. He added: "I will follow the special counsel regulations scrupulously and in good faith, and on my watch, Bob will be allowed to finish."
Information for this article was contributed by Charlie Savage, Nicholas Fandos and Katie Benner of The New York Times; and by Eric Tucker, Michael Balsamo, Chad Day, Jonathan Lemire and Colleen Long of The Associated Press.
A Section on 01/16/2019