Attorney General William Barr to testify before House Judiciary Committee
The arrangement comes as Democrats have demanded answers about Barr's apparent intervention in the sentencing of Roger Stone.
Attorney General William Barr has accepted an invitation to testify to the House Judiciary Committee next month, ending a year-long standoff that began when the panel first demanded his testimony in the aftermath of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
The arrangement comes as Democrats have demanded answers about Barr's apparent intervention in the sentencing of President Donald Trump’s longtime ally Roger Stone, who was convicted last year on charges that he lied to congressional investigators and threatened a witness.
Hours after Trump railed against Justice Department prosecutors for recommending a seven- to nine-year sentence for Stone, DOJ rebuked its own team and issued a revised recommendation calling for a lighter sentence. The four prosecutors assigned to Stone’s case abruptly withdrew on Tuesday.
On Wednesday morning, Trump hailed Barr for "taking charge" of the matter, confirming suggestions that it was the attorney general himself who intervened.
Barr's appearance before the committee will bring him face to face with some of Trump's fiercest political adversaries, including Chairman Jerry Nadler, who subpoenaed the Justice Department last year to obtain Mueller's underlying evidence and has gone to court to overrule Barr's refusal to share the grand jury evidence Mueller collected.
Democrats have a long list of issues they're likely to press Barr on, including his involvement in decisions surrounding Trump's decision to withhold military funds from Ukraine last year, and his handling of a whistleblower complaint about the episode that DOJ determined should be withheld from Congress, overruling an intelligence community inspector general.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/12/attorney-general-william-barr-to-testify-before-house-judiciary-committee-114601