AG Barr will be in front of the House Judiciary Committee and from the looks of it, he’s not going to hold back:
Tomorrow’s House Judiciary Committee hearing is going to be 🔥.
Not often you see an AG call a DOJ investigation “bogus.” He said he was seeking to get to “grave” abuses at heart of Russia probe. pic.twitter.com/4m0hK9Y2wR— Del Quentin Wilber (@DelWilber) July 28, 2020
Here’s more from Fox News:
In his first-ever appearance before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Attorney General Bill Barr will condemn the “grave abuses” in the “bogus Russiagate scandal,” while also highlighting Black-on-Black violence and defending law enforcement officers in no uncertain terms, according to a transcript of his prepared remarks obtained by Fox News on Monday night.
Barr’s unusually aggressive posture will be matched by a full-throated defense from GOP lawmakers on the panel, including ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Fox News is told.
“Ever since I made it clear that I was going to do everything I could to get to the bottom of the grave abuses involved in the bogus Russiagate scandal, many of the Democrats on this committee have attempted to discredit me by conjuring up a narrative that I am simply the president’s factotum who disposes of criminal cases according to his instructions,” Barr is expected to say at the outset of his remarks. “Judging from the letter inviting me to this hearing, that appears to be your agenda today.”
Barr will go on to deny that Trump has improperly interfered with any of his decisions, before pointing to statistics showing progress on racial-justice issues, according to his prepared remarks.
“Police forces today are far more diverse than ever before; there are both more Black police chiefs and more Black officers in the ranks,” Barr is expected to say. “Although the death of George Floyd – an unarmed Black man – at the hands of the police was a shocking event, the fact is that such events are fortunately quite rare. According to statistics compiled by the Washington Post, the number of unarmed Black men killed by police so far this year is eight. The number of unarmed White men killed by police over the same time period is 11. Some unarmed suspects, moreover, were physically attacking officers or threatening others at the time they were shot. And, the overall number of police shootings has been decreasing.”
At the same time, the attorney general is expected to say, Black Americans too often kill each other. “The threat to Black lives posed by crime on the streets is massively greater than any threat posed by police misconduct,” Barr’s remarks read. “The leading cause of death for young Black males is homicide. Every year approximately 7,500 Black Americans are victims of homicide, and the vast majority of them – around 90 percent – are killed by other Blacks, mainly by gunfire. Each of those lives matter.”
The questions from tomorrow’s hearing should run five hours max. It starts at 10am and we will have a live stream post on it in the morning. If you want to read Barr’s full opening statement, you can do so here.