Schiff, Warren Call for AG Barr’s Resignation: ‘A Disgrace’
Representative Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) called on Attorney General William Barr to resign on Wednesday in response to reports that Special Counsel Robert Mueller privately expressed frustration at the way in which Barr represented the findings of his investigation.
“I was one of those making the case he never should have been confirmed and certainly not confirmed unless he committed to recusing himself from an investigation where he had an obvious bias. And now we’re seeing that bias playing out time and time again,” Schiff said during an interview with CNN’s New Day.
“He should have never been given the job under these circumstances. Now I think in the interest of the department, he should step down, but I have no expectation that he will,” Schiff continued. “What we are seeing is anyone who gets close to Donald Trump becomes tainted by that experience, and the fundamental conundrum is how do you ethically serve a deeply unethical president? And as we are seeing with Bill Barr and I think as we saw with Rod Rosenstein, you can’t.”
Hours after Schiff’s appearance on MSNBC, Warren joined him in calling for Barr’s resignation and said Congress should move to impeach the president.
AG Barr is a disgrace, and his alarming efforts to suppress the Mueller report show that he's not a credible head of federal law enforcement. He should resign—and based on the actual facts in the Mueller report, Congress should begin impeachment proceedings against the President.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) May 1, 2019
The calls for resignation come just hours after it was revealed that Mueller sent a letter to the Department of Justice complaining that Barr’s summary of his findings, which emphasized that the central charge of collusion was not proven and said the president would not be charged with obstruction, “did not fully capture the context” of his report.
Barr defended his public characterization of the Mueller report Wednesday during his first appearance on Capitol Hill since the report was released earlier this month.
“The deputy attorney general and I knew that we had to make this assessment because, as I previously explained, the prosecutorial judgment whether a crime has been established is an integral part of the department’s criminal process,” Barr told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
