Senator Jeanne Shaheen: So, you’re not, you’re not suggesting, though, that spying occurred?
[Exchange begins at 30:38, C-SPAN3]
Attorney General William Barr: I don’t – uh, well, I – I guess you could – I think there was spying did occur. Yes, I think spying did occur.
Is there a difference between a counter-intelligence investigation authorized by federal court and spying on a political campaign?
Senator Jack Reed: Do you believe that the investigation that Director Mueller undertook was a witch hunt or illegal, as has been asserted by the President?
[Exchange begins at 55:5]
Barr: Uh, as I said during my confirmation, it really depends on where you’re sitting. If you are somebody who is being falsely accused of something you would tend to view the investigation—
Reed: Well, you’re sitting as the Attorney General of the United States with a Constitutional responsibility. So, if you could answer in that regard.
Barr: Well, I’m not going to characterize. It is what it is. You know, Mueller and his team conducted an investigation and are issuing a report.
Barr’s testimony today suggests that he is acting as a political operative on behalf of Donald Trump and not as the United States Attorney General in service of the rule of law. It is dispiriting to observe the depths of degradation of the contemporary Republican Party (once a bastion of law and order).
April 11, 2019 update: Jeffrey Toobin makes the point in a pithier way:
“This is a classic demonstration of the Fox News-ification of the Republican Party. That even an establishment figure like Bill Barr, someone who comes out of the George Herbert Walker Bush administration, talks like Sean Hannity.”