Five takeaways from Attorney General Barr’s contentious congressional hearing

Washington Post logoAttorney General William P. Barr testified Tuesday for the first time in his tenure in front of a critical congressional audience — a House Judiciary Committee with a Democratic majority — as the Justice Department faces questions from critics who say it is helping President Trump politically in ways ranging from policing and protests to intervening in criminal investigations of Trump allies.

“In your time at the department,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold E. Nadler (D-N.Y.) said in his opening statement, “you have aided and abetted the worst failings of this president.”

Barr came ready to defend himself from such accusations, an opportunity Republicans on the committee repeatedly gave him. Continue reading.