POOL

Washington, DC - 1 May 2019

1. William Barr being sworn in prior to testimony

2. Cutaway of Senate Judiciary Committee members

3. SOUNDBITE (English) William Barr, Attorney General:

"Now we first heard the special counsel's decision not to decide the obstruction issue at the March 5th meeting when he came over to the department and we were frankly surprised that that they were not going to reach a decision on obstruction. And we asked them a lot about the reasoning behind this and the basis for this. Once we heard that the special counsel was not reaching a conclusion on obstruction, the deputy and I discussed and agreed that the department had to reach a decision. We had the responsibility to assess the evidence as set forth in the report and to make the judgment. I say this because the special counsel was appointed to carry out the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the department and to do it as part of the Department of Justice. The powers he was using including the power of using a grand jury and using compulsory process exist for that purpose, the function of the Department of Justice in this arena, which is to determine whether or not there has been criminal conduct. It's a binary decision. Is there enough evidence to show a crime? And do we believe a crime has been committed? We don't conduct criminal investigations just to collect information and put it out to the public. We do so to make a decision. And here, we thought there was an additional reason which is this was a very public investigation and we had made clear that the results of the investigation were going to be made public. And the deputy and I felt that the evidence developed by the special counsel was not sufficient to establish that the president committed a crime and therefore it would be irresponsible and unfair for the department to release a report without stating the department's conclusions and thus leave it hanging as to whether the department considered there had been criminal conduct."

4. Wide shot of hearing

5. SOUNDBITE (English) William Barr, Attorney General:

"When the report came in on the 22nd and we saw it was going to take a great deal of time to get it out to the public, I made the determination that we had to put out some information about the bottom line. The body politic was in a high state of agitation, there was massive interest in learning what the bottom line results of Bob Mueller's investigation was, particularly as to collusion, former government officials were confidently predicting that the president and members of his family were going to be indicted. There were people suggesting that if it took any time to turn around the report and get it out it would mean that the president was in legal jeopardy. So I didn't feel that it was in the public interest to allow this to go on for several weeks without saying anything, and so I decided to simply state what the bottom line conclusions were, which is what the department normally does, make a binary determination - is there a crime or isn't there a crime. We prepared the letter for that purpose to state the bottom line conclusions."

6. Cutaway of committee

7. SOUNDBITE (English) William Barr, Attorney General:

"On Thursday morning, I received, it probably was received at the Department Wednesday night or evening, but on Thursday morning I received a letter from Bob. The letter that's just been put into the record. And I called Bob and said you know, what's the issue here? Are you, and I asked him if he was suggesting that the March 24th letter was inaccurate. And he said, 'no,' but that the press reporting had been inaccurate. And that the press was reading too much into it and I asked him specifically what his concern was. And he said that his concern focused on his explanation of why he did not reach a conclusion on obstruction. And he wanted more put out on that issue. He wanted, he argued for putting out summaries of each volume, the executive summaries that had been written by his office. And if not that then other material that focused on the issue of why he didn't reach the obstruction question. But he was very clear with me that he was not suggesting that we had misrepresented his report."

8. Side shot of Barr testifying

Attorney General William Barr defended his handling of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia report on Wednesday amid new revelations that Mueller expressed frustration to Barr about how the attorney general was portraying the investigation's findings.

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Barr said he was surprised that special counsel Robert Mueller and his team did not reach a conclusion on whether or not President Donald Trump obstructed justice.

A Justice Department legal opinion says sitting presidents cannot be indicted. Barr says Mueller told him he wouldn't have recommended indicting the president even without that opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel.

Barr says Mueller told him that there may come a time when the Justice Department should consider revisiting that opinion but that this is not that case.

The Attorney General said it is the responsibility of the special counsel using a grand jury to "determine whether or not there has been criminal conduct."

"We don't conduct criminal investigations just to collect information and put it out to the public. We do so to make a decision," Barr said.

Mueller has written a letter says that Barr's summary of his Russia report created "public confusion about critical aspects of the results."

Barr testified that Mueller told him in a phone call that Barr didn't "misrepresent" Mueller's Russia report in a letter summarizing the probe's principal conclusions.

Barr said Mueller told him press reports were reading too much into Barr's letter and Mueller wanted the public to see more of his reasoning for not answering the question of whether President Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice.