Attorney General William Barr’s grilling before the Democrat-led House Judiciary Committee scheduled for the end of this month has been postponed as both Congress and the Justice Department grapple with the coronavirus outbreak.
“Due to overwhelming health and safety concerns, the House Judiciary will postpone our March 31st oversight hearing with Attorney General Barr,” Chairman Jerry Nadler of New York tweeted Monday afternoon. “DOJ has made a commitment to rescheduling the hearing for when the crisis abates and the Committee is able to reconvene.”
There were more than 378,000 confirmed coronavirus cases around the world and at least 16,000 deaths tied to the infection as of Monday night, according to Johns Hopkins University. In the United States, there were nearly 44,000 cases, which have resulted in over 500 deaths.
Back in February, Nadler wrote to Barr asking him to appear before the House Judiciary Committee, where he has yet to testify.
Nadler said Democrats planned to address actions taken by the Justice Department, including Barr’s intervention to reduce the prison sentence recommendation for longtime Trump associate and self-described “dirty trickster” Roger Stone, who was convicted of lying to the House Intelligence Committee during its Russian interference investigation, among other charges.
Democrats also wanted to question Barr about the decision to withdraw the nomination of former U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu, who had been nominated to a position in the Treasury Department. Liu oversaw the prosecution of Stone as well as former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI but has sought to withdraw his guilty plea.
Trump has criticized the prosecution of both Stone and Flynn, and Barr remarked that Trump’s tweets about ongoing cases made it “impossible” for him to do his job.
Democrats also want Barr to explain the process the department has created for Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to provide information he said he had obtained from Ukraine related to corruption allegations against the Bidens. The attorney general appointed an outside U.S. attorney to review the Flynn case, as well.
In the letter, Nadler suggested Barr is guilty of using the department to serve Trump’s political purposes, writing, “Since President Trump took office, we have repeatedly warned you and your predecessors that the misuse of our criminal justice system for political purposes is both dangerous to our democracy and unacceptable to the House Judiciary Committee.”
Nadler has made no secret of his desire to press the DOJ for more answers about special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, too. In late February, he sent Barr another letter requesting documents and interviews with 15 officials with knowledge of cases of personal interest to Trump.
U.S. Attorney John Durham, a top prosecutor in Connecticut who is leading the investigation of the Trump-Russia investigators for Barr, was on the list of officials. Nadler asked that Barr respond by March 13 “given the urgent and serious nature of these requests.”
Then-ranking member Rep. Doug Collins said at the time that the request was “another attempt to distract from the job they’ve failed to do, which is reform FISA and finally address the abuse that has plagued our nation over the last three years.” The Georgia Republican said that “the only political interference our committee should be examining is the FBI’s unlawful surveillance of Carter Page and the Trump campaign.”
Last week, Nadler’s office told the Washington Examiner that Barr missed a deadline to provide the committee with answers about these cases, but his communications director acknowledged, “There is obviously a lot going on at the moment, though.”
Trump signed an executive order Monday targeting the hoarding of medical supplies to profit off the coronavirus outbreak.
Barr said at a coronavirus briefing that the DOJ will be “designating in each of our 93 U.S. Attorney’s Offices a lead prosecutor who will be responsible in that district for pursuing these cases” and warned, “If you are sitting on a warehouse with surgical masks, you will be hearing a knock on your door.”
The Justice Department defended its draft legislative proposals to Congress this week asking to empower judges to extend deadlines and statutes of limitations to ensure criminal investigations can continue during a disruptive public health emergency like COVID-19.
The DOJ carried out its first coronavirus-related crackdown earlier this week by shutting down a fraudulent website selling fake coronavirus vaccines.
Barr also issued a directive to federal prosecutors last week to prioritize investigations of scam artists and hackers looking to exploit the coronavirus pandemic and vowed there would be “severe” consequences if a foreign country was found to be behind the cyberattack against the HHS website or behind false nationwide lockdown rumors.
