Dems Call on Barr to Resign as He Downplays Russia Report and Defends Handling in Wake of Criticism from Mueller; Source Says Barr Not Expected to Testify Tomorrow; Democrats Call On Barr To Resign As He Downplays Russia Report And Defends Handling In Wake Of Mueller Criticism; Barr Calls Mueller's Letter Objecting To His Summary Of Report A Bit Snitty.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER: You can Tweet the show @TheLeadCNN, we actually read them. Our coverage on CNN with the inimitable Wolf Blitzer continues right now. Thanks for watching.</s>WOLF BLITZER, CNN THE SITUATION ROOM: Happening now, breaking news, Barr sinks in a contentious hearing. The Attorney General William Barr strongly defends his handling of the Mueller report and his controversial summary of the findings. Democrats accuse him of misleading and lying. And tonight, a growing number of them are calling for Barr to resign. Under the bus. Throughout the hearing, Barr appears to disparage his longtime friend, Robert Mueller, even insinuating that the Special Counsel didn't do his job and calling Mueller's letter critical of Barr, and I'm quoting now, a bit snitty. Will Mueller be called to testify to lawmakers as well? Eats your soul. Fired FBI Director James Comey publishes a scathing rebuke of Barr even as the Attorney General was testifying. Comey saying that accomplished people lacking inner strength compromised as the President devours their integrity, and I'm quoting him now, in small bites. And Tweet insanity. President Trump spirals out of control on Twitter, spending the morning Tweeting and re-Tweeting, including trolls and bots, more than, get this, 60 times, one of the re-Tweets, a person who changed his handle to a four-letter insult of the President. I'm Wolf Blitzer, you're in The Situation Room. We're following breaking news. Growing calls from top democrats for the Attorney General, William Barr, to resign, coming as he testified before the House Judiciary Committee about the Mueller report. Barr downplayed the Special Counsel's findings in his obstruction of justice investigation of the President and defended his own handling of the report, this after the revelation of a bombshell letter from Mueller, objecting to Barr's characterization of his Russia probe. We'll talk about the breaking news with a key member of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Richard Blumenthal. And our correspondents and analysts are also standing by. First, let's get the details on the latest truly remarkable developments. Our Political Correspondent, Sara Murray, is working this story for us. Sara, Barr strongly defended himself and President Trump as he was grilled for some four hours.</s>SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. We really saw a defiant Attorney General there defending the President and also defending himself, insisting he didn't mislead congress, even though he wasn't particularly forthcoming about his conversations with Robert Mueller before his last time on Capitol Hill. You can imagine how that sat with democrats.</s>WILLIAM BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: And it was my decision how and when to make it public, not Bob Mueller's.</s>MURRAY: Barr defending his rollout of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report just hours after it was revealed that Mueller criticized Barr for mischaracterizing his conclusions.</s>BARR: His work concluded when he sent his report to the Attorney General. At that point, it was my baby.</s>MURRAY: Mueller initially raised objections on March 25th, a day after Barr sent his four-page summary to Congress. On March 27th, Mueller reiterated his concerns, writing, there is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the department appointed the Special Counsel to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.</s>BARR: I said, Bob, what's with the letter? You know, why don't you just pick up the phone and call me if there's an issue.</s>MURRAY: Barr recounted the call he had with Mueller after receiving the letter.</s>BARR: He said that they were concerned about the way the media was playing this and felt that it was important to get out the summaries, which they felt would put their work in proper context and avoid some of the confusion that was emerging. And I asked him if he felt that my letter was misleading or inaccurate and he said, no.</s>MURRAY: But Mueller does not mention media coverage in his letter, instead writing that Barr did not fully capture the context, nature and substance of this office's work and conclusions. Senators pounced.</s>SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): This letter was an extraordinary act, a career prosecutor rebuking the Attorney General of the United States, memorializing in writing, right?</s>BARR: The letter is a bit snitty and I think it was probably written by one of his staff people.</s>MURRAY: Mueller also pressed Barr to release the summaries the investigators had written, something Barr did not do until he released the full report.</s>BARR: I said to him, I wasn't interested -- the fact is, we didn't have readily available summaries that had been fully vetted.</s>MURRAY: Now, democrats are accusing Barr of lying to Congress when he said this on April 10th, just weeks after Mueller expressed his concerns.</s>SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD): Did bob Mueller support your conclusion?</s>BARR: I don't know whether bob Mueller supported my conclusion.</s>MURRAY: Today, Barr evaded explaining that discrepancy, instead bringing up a different answer from a different hearing.</s>BARR: The question was relating to unidentified members who were expressing frustration over the accuracy relating to findings. I don't know what that refers to at all.</s>MURRAY: Democrats weren't buying it.</s>SEN. MAZIE HIRONO (D-HI): You lied. And now we know.</s>SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D-VT): Mr. Barr, your -- I feel your answer was purposefully misleading and I think others do too.</s>MURRAY: Barr also parried questions about why he concluded President Trump's conduct, like trying to fire Mueller, did not rise to obstruction of justice.</s>BARR: There is a distinction between saying to someone, go fire him, go fire Mueller, and saying, have him removed based on conflict. They have different results.</s>MURRAY: But Mueller did not see that distinction writing in the more than 400-page report, that in seeking to fire the Special Counsel, the President sought to exclude his and his campaign's conduct from the investigation's scope. Barr argued that without a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians, an obstruction case was tough to make.</s>BARR: An obstruction case typically has two aspects to it. One, there's usually an underlying criminality --</s>SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Let's stop right there.</s>BARR: Yes.</s>GRAHAM: Was there an underlying crime here?</s>BARR: No.</s>MURRAY: Now, democrats also expressed concern that Bill Barr will now be seeing more than a dozen offshoot investigations from the Special Counsel's probe. Barr says he has no plans to recuse from those matters. Wolf?</s>BLITZER: I want you to stay with us, Sara. Evan Perez, our Senior Justice Correspondent, is with us. Our Chief Legal Analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, is with us as well. Evan, as you know, Barr called the Mueller letter was critical of his original letter, and I'm quoting him now, a bit snitty. They're known to be very good friends. But is there daylight between these two men right now?</s>EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: I think there's a lot of daylight, Wolf. I think what we saw today, and you heard from Bill Barr's description of him receiving this letter and picking up the phone to tell -- to talk to Bob Mueller, and beginning the conversation was like, what's with the letter? I think that tells you everything right there. I think, as we've said today, a lot -- the fact that Mueller wrote this letter is everything. You don't write letters like this inside the Justice Department unless you want to memorialize it, unless you want it eventually to become public. And again, it shows that there's a real division between what Bill Barr says, this investigation found, and it's clear, Bill Barr doesn't think much of this investigation. And Bob Mueller, who conducted this investigation, believes that there's a lot there, but, again, did not arrive at a conclusion on obstruction in part because the President is the sitting President and cannot be indicted.</s>BLITZER: Yes. And it's not, Jeff, the only complaint that Barr had on Mueller, not just this letter, but he seemed to be complaining that Mueller really didn't do his job in avoiding the final decision on obstruction of justice.</s>JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I mean, I found that one of many extraordinary things Barr said. Because Barr said, look, if he wanted to say that Trump should be indicted, he should have just said that Trump should be indicted. But Mueller was following the policy of the Department of Justice he couldn't indict Trump. He knew he couldn't indict Trump. And the whole reason he didn't come to that conclusion, as he said, was because he didn't want to have an unfair situation where he made an accusation to which Trump didn't have a form to defend himself. So the idea that Mueller sort of dropped the ball or was too lazy or too incompetent to come to a conclusion seems precisely wrong here.</s>BLITZER: How significant, Evan, will all of this be when Mueller finally, and I assume it will happen probably sooner rather than later, when Mueller appears before the congressional committee?</s>PEREZ: Well, it's imperative that he does. And according to Bill Barr, he has no objection to this. So I think it's clear that the house democrats will probably be the venue for that, according to Lindsey Graham, he's not very interested. But, again, if Lindsey Graham, as you heard in the hearing today, Lindsey Graham says that he wants to investigate the investigators. He wants to get to the bottom of this. Well, part of that involves Robert Mueller. And I think it's imperative for you to hear from Robert Mueller as part of that. I can't imagine that you would do that without hearing from Robert Mueller. And again, he's still an employee of the Justice Department for the time being. So you could use that as a way to get him in there. But I don't really understand why so reluctant.</s>MURRAY: I also can't imagine Lindsey Graham if, you know, the situation were reversed, and, you know, it was a republican situation. You know, he would, of course, want to speak to the person who was overseeing this investigation if there was such a gulf between this. And that was really perplexing to me to see Lindsey Graham say --</s>BLITZER: If there were a democratic Attorney General, of course, he would. There are, what, about 14 other cases that have been spun off from the Mueller probe. The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, other U.S. attorneys are investigating. I didn't sense we got a really clear answer from Barr today on whether or not he's discussed any of these other cases, 12 of them of whom we don't know anything about with officials over at the White House.</s>MURRAY: Right. We got this sort of lawyerly, you know, not to my knowledge, I don't recall. And he said said, you know, I'm essentially pretty sure that I haven't had these conversations. But I think it's interesting because you point out, you know, a dozen of these investigations we really know nothing about. A couple of them we do, including Roger Stone. And you can imagine that President Trump might be interested to know what is going to happen to his longtime political adviser. It's also an interesting case because Roger Stone is in trouble for obstructing justice and witness tampering, but he's not in trouble for an underlying crime. And if you are Attorney General William Barr, apparently, you don't necessarily think someone can be in trouble for obstructing justice if they haven't committed this underlying crime. So I think there's a lot of reason to question what the sort of backchannel discussions might be and if there are any and if there could be some in the future.</s>BLITZER: Yes, we know about Roger Stone and Michael Cohen, those investigations were spun off. But there are about 12 others that we don't know much about, if anything. Jeff, is there a chance, and you've covered this kind of business for a long time, that Barr could be forced to resign over all of this?</s>TOOBIN: I can't imagine that happening. You know, the more confrontational he is with Congress, the better the President likes him. And the President is his boss. What we saw today was a unified Democratic Party critical of Barr and a unified Republican Party supportive of him and urging him yet again, yet again, to have the Justice Department investigate Hillary Clinton's emails. You almost couldn't believe it if you didn't hear it with your own ears. But starting with Lindsey Graham, we heard again that the republicans want Hillary Clinton's e-mails investigated. And nothing could please the President more. And he's the person who's calling the shots here.</s>BLITZER: Yes. He repeatedly seemed like the President of the United States was the victim in all of this.</s>TOOBIN: That, to me, was some of the most extraordinary testimony of the day, that, you know, Barr said on several different occasions, look, we spent two years investigating collusion and the President was exonerated. No wonder he was upset. I mean, it was exactly the opposite of how this investigation actually began. This investigation began when the President fired James Comey, an act that a Mueller ultimately found was possible obstruction of justice. What Barr has done, and this came out throughout the day, is Barr has said the obstruction is really just peripheral and not important and not relevant. What's relevant is that Mueller found no collusion. But, in fact, you know, obstruction has been in the heart of this case since Mueller was appointed.</s>BLITZER: All right. Everybody stand by, Jeffrey, including you. We're going to have you all back. There's a lot more to discuss. But right now, I want to bring in a key member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. Senator, thanks so much for coming in.</s>BLUMENTHAL: Thank you.</s>BLITZER: You say the Attorney General of the United States, William Barr, should resign. What did you hear today that led you to that conclusion?</s>BLUMENTHAL: What I heard today was continuing evasive, disingenuous and outright deceptive answers to our questions. The Mueller letter was a stunning rebuke. William Barr characterized it as snitty.</s>BLITZER: A bit snitty.</s>BLUMENTHAL: A bit snitty.</s>BLITZER: He also said it was probably written by one of Mueller's staffers.</s>BLUMENTHAL: Well, let's be very blunt. Bob Mueller does not allow someone else to write that kind of letter for him. It was very carefully crafted. He refers to the context, nature and conclusions, and says that the mischaracterization of them is undermining public confidence in the work of his investigations. This letter memorializes sentiments that go to the core of William Barr's credibility and that's the reason he has to resign, because he has devastated his own credibility.</s>BLITZER: Do you think the Attorney General perjured himself either today or in the very recent previous testimony?</s>BLUMENTHAL: Perjury is a pretty serious charge.</s>BLITZER: You speak as a former attorney general in Connecticut.</s>BLUMENTHAL: And I speak as a former attorney general and a former federal prosecutor. I want to review those transcripts, but let's look at what he said in response to my colleague, Chris Van Hollen, he said that he didn't know whether Bob Mueller supported his conclusions, exactly the word that Bob Mueller used to say that William Barr was mischaracterizing his conclusions. So I think there is a really serious question here that, at the very least, put aside the legalities, goes to his ethical standing for this position.</s>BLITZER: Will you go as far as some of your democratic colleagues are already doing and recommending impeachment of the Attorney General?</s>BLUMENTHAL: I think that Attorney General William Barr ought to recognize that he has an obligation to resign here. I have called it at the very least for him to recuse himself from those 12 to 14 ongoing investigations into the President of the United States in other jurisdictions. He declined. In fact, he ducked the question entirely as to whether he has had any conversations with the White House about them. He said he couldn't recall, a response that is very difficult to believe. So I think he should resign.</s>BLITZER: All right. Let me play this clip and then we'll continue this. Listen to this.</s>BLUMENTHAL: I want to ask you whether on those remaining investigations, the 12 to 14 investigations, whether you have had any communication with anyone in the White House.</s>BARR: No.</s>BLUMENTHAL: And will you give us an ironclad commitment that you will, in no way --</s>BARR: By the way, I'm not sure -- you know, the laundry list of investigations, but I certainly haven't talked the substance or been directed to do anything on any of the cases.</s>BLUMENTHAL: Well, let me give you an opportunity to clarify. Have you had any conversations with anyone in the White House about those ongoing investigations that were spawned or spun off by --</s>BARR: I don't recall having any substantive discussions on the investigation.</s>BLUMENTHAL: Have you had any non-substantive discussion?</s>BARR: It's possible that the name of a case was mentioned.</s>BLUMENTHAL: And have you provided information about any of those ongoing investigations, any information whatsoever?</s>BARR: I don't recall, no.</s>BLUMENTHAL: You don't recall?</s>BARR: I don't recall providing any --</s>BLUMENTHAL: Wouldn't you recall about whether you gave information to somebody in the White House about an ongoing criminal investigation in the Southern District of New York or the Eastern District of New York or the Eastern District of Virginia or the Department of Justice?</s>BARR: Yes. I mean, I just don't recall providing any substantive information about a case.</s>BLITZER: So what are your concerns about the way he answered your questions?</s>BLUMENTHAL: Well, let's recognize, Wolf, that the Mueller report details communications between the White House and Jeff sessions, when he was Attorney General, and attempts to interfere with the ongoing then Special Counsel investigation. That is part and parcel of one of the key claims in the Mueller report about obstruction of justice. For William Barr to be having those same kinds of conversations raises the specter of this ongoing political interference in the Department of Justice.</s>BLITZER: Well, do you have any evidence that he may have done any of these things that you were asking about?</s>BLUMENTHAL: I have no specific evidence, but we are going to be looking for it. And I think our committee has plan obligation to find it. And that's the reason that I also asked for the notes that were taken when he and Bob Mueller had a conversation after Bob Mueller wrote his letter objecting to Barr's mischaracterization.</s>BLITZER: Well, he said he did confirm there was a memorandum of that conversation that was put down on paper. But he also said he's not going to make it available to you.</s>BLUMENTHAL: Well, let's see whether he does or not, because I think my republican colleagues are facing a moment of reckoning. Yes, they have, the majority of the committee. They've so far indicated very little interest in getting the truth here. But I think they have an obligation to do more. And I hope that we can subpoena those records because there is no privilege at least that's been asserted that would enable the republicans to conceal those notes of a key conversation goes to the core of Mueller's obstruction to Barr, in effect, creating this false narrative, spawning and sponsoring it across the nation.</s>BLITZER: The hearing this morning started at 10:00 A.M., wrapped up at 3:00 P.M., there was a one-hour break for lunch, but it continued. Lindsey Graham, at the end of all of this, at the end of the day, he made it clear for him, it's over, no need for anymore hearings, no need to question Mueller, no need to question former White House Counsel Don McGahn. What's your reaction to that?</s>BLUMENTHAL: I think we have a lot more work to do here. The American people deserve to know all of what Bob Mueller found. This report is an indictment in all but name. It is an absolutely chilling portrait of wrongdoing and criminality at the highest level of our government. Bob Mueller, far from exonerating the President of the United States, said he couldn't. And he depended on this office of legal memorandum, merely 20 years old, that says a sitting President can't be indicted. That was the reason that Donald Trump, in fact, was not charged with criminal wrongdoing, because there's extensive evidence of it, in the Mueller report. The American people deserve the full picture.</s>BLITZER: But if Graham is the chairman of the committee, there's no way that you're going to get Mueller or McGahn for that matter to testify before your committee. They could testify before other committees, especially in the House of Representatives, where there's a democratic majority, but you're not going to get them in the Senate.</s>BLUMENTHAL: I'm going to be talking to Chairman Graham. And he's a respected litigator himself. I think, I hope he will, at the very least, pursue those notes to begin with, of the conversation with Barr that Barr's staff took. And Mueller may have taken notes as well. These are the first rough draft of history that we need to see. And we also have the House of Representatives that can subpoena them.</s>BLITZER: Speaking of the House of Representatives, Barr is supposed to be scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee tomorrow morning, as well. But he's threatening not to show up because the democrats, including the committee chairman, Jerry Nadler, say, in addition to representatives asking questions, committee staff, lawyers, will ask questions 30 minutes from a republican staffer, 30 minutes from a democratic staffer. And Barr, at least until now, says that's not going to happen.</s>BLUMENTHAL: And the question is, why? What is he trying to conceal? What does he think he'll be asked through that kind of sustained follow-up questioning, which can be done over 30 minutes, very difficult to do in the seven minutes or five minutes.</s>BLITZER: If he does show up tomorrow, what do you want your House colleagues to do?</s>BLUMENTHAL: I want to know about those notes that were taken and I want sustained questioning about the thought process that went into his decision, despite the overwhelming evidence of obstruction, not to charge the President. And there are a variety of questions that I'm going to be suggesting to my House colleagues if he does appear tomorrow.</s>BLITZER: It's up in the air right now. We'll see what happens. We expect to find out fairly soon, as soon as we find out, our viewers will find out, as well. Senator Blumenthal, thanks so much for joining us.</s>BLUMENTHAL: Thank you.</s>BLITZER: The breaking news continues. New details emerging involving the battle between the Attorney General and the House Judiciary Committee. Will he show up for tomorrow's hearing? And we'll also get White House reaction to William Barr's contentious appearing today before senators.