U.S. Attorney General William Barr (video screenshot)
Attorney General Bill Barr appeared before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday for a hearing, only it ended up not being a hearing, actually.
In fact, Barr asked at one point, if it was a hearing, "aren't I the one who's supposed to be heard?"
"He ate their lunch," commentator Michael Goodwin wrote of the attorney general.
"Bill Barr, denied a meal break, feasted instead on a gaggle of Democratic amateurs," he said.
Democrats, one after another, raised their voices to shouts, charged the nation's top law enforcement officer with a wide range of crimes, including causing coronavirus deaths as AG, demanded "Reclaiming my time!" over and over, usually just after asking a question, and more.
"Another congressional hearing, another Dem disaster. They planned a public hanging of the attorney general and spent weeks constructing their scaffold. He is corrupt, a liar, a toady, they and their media handmaidens assured us, and the House Judiciary Committee will reveal all," Goodwin explained. "Two obstacles quickly became apparent. The first is that the Dems were led by Rep. Jerry Nadler, whose rabidness is exceeded only by his haplessness.
"The start was delayed because Nadler was in a minor car accident. That was obviously an omen, but Nadler doesn’t take hints, so he plowed forward into a head-on crash with a heavyweight opponent superior in every way."
Goodwin called the Democrat attack "a farrago of lies, fake news and slanderous attacks on law enforcement, Barr and Trump."
Barr, in fact, was on offense, Goodwin said, "to demand an end to the 'demonizing of police' and the dangerous defunding movement."
He challenged, Goodwin said, the Democrats with the truth: "This is the first time in my memory that the leaders of one of our two great political parties, the Democratic Party, are not coming out and condemning mob violence. Can’t we just say the violence against the federal courts has to stop? Could we hear something like that?"
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said he had to turn off the hearing because it was "triggering [his] gag reflex."
"The point that some of my Democratic colleagues seem to be trying to make was that the attorney general was out of control. But, what they really mean is that he's out of their control," he said.
Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy pointed out that Barr confronted the committee with their idea of a "hearing," wondering why he wasn't allowed to answer their questions.
"His frustration was more than justified. Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., and the other Democrats who control the House demanded for months that Barr come to a 'hearing' and 'testify.' But of course, it wasn’t anything like an actual hearing, and they didn’t want him to testify – as in actually answer questions," McCarthy said. "The session was a coveted election-year opportunity for Democrats to berate the attorney general of the United States in five-minute installments, accusing Barr of corruption, perjury, violating his oath, betraying the Constitution — at one point, even of killing thousands of COVID-19 victims (apparently, by being attorney general during a pandemic)."
McCarthy said it actually was Barr running the hearing, "Especially at the beginning of the hearing, Barr easily parried the hostile questions — soliloquies with question-marks at the end. He picked apart their misstatements and disingenuous premises, and answered with aplomb."
Commentators Hans A. von Spakovsky and Charles Stimson called the Democrats "confrontational and rude" and said they "appeared intent on scoring political points by shouting over him as he explained the Justice Department response to riots across the country."
And committee members "got something else as well from the attorney general: a much-needed lecture on their role and responsibilities as elected public officials. Barr told them that 'regardless of their political views' or 'their feelings about the Trump administration,' they should 'condemn the violence' engulfing our cities, particularly violence directed at federal officers and federal property," they wrote.
Department of Justice spokeswoman Kerri Kupic said on "Hannity" that the hearing was a "lost opportunity for the American people."
"There are many Americans who want to know more about why the attorney general has made certain decisions that he has made and taken some of the actions that he's taken," Kupec said, "and the attorney general was prepared to answer those questions today."
Barr had prepared for this hearing for weeks, she said, but was unable to provide substantive or substantial testimony because he was unable to respond to statements or questions.
The Daily Mail pointed out what could have been a summary of the day's exchanges happened when Barr asked for a five-minute break just before the last two questioners, and Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler initially refused.
"You're a real class act," Barr told him.
The Mail analysis said, "The ill-tempered hearing, marked by Democrats tearing into Barr and charging him with treating minority Americans and allies of the president differently, while Republicans highlighted violent protests and mocked their political rivals, produced little in way of new insight but huge amounts of vitriol."
GOP members, in the minority on the committee, endorsed Barr's positions and defended him.
"Wow. I'm beginning to believe that you're the cause of the common cold, and possibly even the COVID-19 because everything's being thrown at you," Rep. Doug Collins, a Republican from Georgia, told Barr.
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