Official White House Photo by Tia DufourBy ALEXANDER MALLIN, KATHERINE FAULDERS and LUKE BARR, ABC News
(WASHINGTON) — Attorney General William Barr is set to testify before the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday for the first time in his year-and-a-half long tenure as the nation’s top law enforcement official.
Democrats hope to grill him over a long list of controversies and his repeated interventions in matters of interest to President Donald Trump.
Barr’s appearance follows more than a year of stand-offs and delays — he hasn’t appeared before any congressional committee since May 2019 when he testified to a Senate panel on his handling of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election — later declining to appear before the House.
Here’s how the hearing unfolded, please refresh this page for updates:
11:18 a.m. Nadler says Barr’s tenure marked by favors to Trump
After saying he’s fine after a minor car accident, Nadler opens the hearing by railing on Barr’s Justice Department, saying the attorney general has put political favors for the president over the needs of the American people.
“Your tenure has been marked by a persistent war against the department’s professional core in an apparent attempt to secure favors for the president,” Nadler says. “After he finished utterly humiliating his first Attorney General. He found you. In your time at the department, you have aided and abetted the worst failings of the president.”
9:38 a.m. Hearing delayed after Nadler in car accident
A committee source confirms House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., was in a car accident on his was to the hearing, but he is okay and was en route to Capitol Hill in a cab.
The car hit something, but Nadler is not injured.
The hearing will be delayed for at least 45 minutes.
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