WEBVTT - Barr Squares Off with Democrats in Heated Testimony 0:00:00.480 --> 0:00:05.720 You're listening to Bloomberg Law with June Grosso from Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:06.920 --> 0:00:10.520 Attorney General William Barr offered a combative defense of his 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:14.040 independence from President Donald Trump and his role as Attorney 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:17.319 General as he testified yesterday before a committee in the 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:21.480 Democratic controlled House. Over more than four hours of testimony. 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:26.600 The Democrats pressed Bar. The exchanges over bars controversial decision 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:30.800 to overrule his own prosecutors to reduce a recommended prison 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:35.600 sentence for Trump ally Roger Stone were particularly combative. Here's 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:40.600 bars exchange with Democratic Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson. You change 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:47.720 that recommended the night before, the night before, I'm asking, Well, 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:50.839 I'm telling my story. That's what I'm here to do. 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:54.040 That's why I'm here. Well, I'm here to tell my story. 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:57.560 Joining me is National Security Attorney Bradley Moss, a partner 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:01.160 Mark Zade. How would you describe bars testimony and the 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:05.840 questioning by the Democrats and Republicans? The whole situation was 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:09.240 a complete disastrous circus, and nobody came out of this 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:14.040 looking pretty good. Republicans ran irrelevant talking points to Jordan, 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:17.440 you know, particularly amongst them trying to deflect from the situation. 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:21.560 The Democrats looked somewhat petty with their constant reclaiming the time, 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:26.120 you know, parliamentary procedure, and the Attorney General dragged out answers, 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:30.600 Stall procrastinated and constantly appeared to be unaware of factual 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:33.679 details that everybody on the plane at this point seemingly 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:37.440 already knew about situations in places like Portland or in 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:40.960 Michigan back in the spring. In the contents of the 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:43.440 President's tweets and comments on stuff such as the Roger 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:47.520 Stone prosecution of the Michael Flynn prosecution, it was not 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:50.120 what we tend to think of anymore as an actual 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:53.760 oversight hearing, because it wasn't an oversight hearing. It was 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:56.720 a political circus. And it's rather disturbing that this is 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.320 what it's come to. Let's talk about some of the 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:04.240 different points. There were allegations that he basically abandoned the 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:09.480 Justice Department's political independence to back President Trump, and one 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:14.959 of the most controversial moves was overruling his own prosecutors 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:19.440 to reduce a recommended prison sentence for Trump ally roger Stone. 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:23.560 How did he respond to that? YEA, So it was 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:25.240 kind of a mixed bag. I mean, one of the 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:27.760 things that the Attorney General raised in response was to 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:29.960 say that, you know, this is a sixty six year 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:34.240 old man, first time offender, non violent offense. It's not 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:36.760 a meeting potatoes kind of crime. Trying to, you know, 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:39.960 basically play the role of defense attorney for roger Stone 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:44.040 almost um in trying to mitigate any real sense that 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:46.200 there should have been a punishment. He then, you know, 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:48.520 obviously deflect from that by saying, I still thought it 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.840 was the righteous prosecution. I thought some jail time was warranted, 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:56.320 and that is what the judge ultimately granted before the 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:59.920 President commuted the sentence. But basically, the Attorney General kind 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:05.600 raised some mitigating factors that on their own wouldn't usually 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:08.440 in any other case of someone other than roger Stone, 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:11.440 have been enough to warrant such a reduction in the 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:14.920 rent sensing recommendation from the Justice Department. And as the 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:18.080 Attorney General noted, is the first time, as far as 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:22.360 he's aware, that he's ever otherwise, you know, in intervened 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:26.640 to overrule a sensing recommendation at that stage. I thought 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:30.080 that was the most telling part of his answer to 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:33.920 the roger Stone questions was that he had never done 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:37.240 this before, and the Democrats brought out that one point, 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:39.280 but as for the rest of it, didn't seem that 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:43.800 they really brought out the egregiousness or the departure from 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:47.040 standards of what he did. Yeah, well, and so this 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:48.840 is where, you know, and listening to some of the 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:51.720 answers given by the Attorney General, he lives apparently in 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:54.680 this world of blissful ignorance of everything else going on 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:57.080 around him that the rest of us see on a 0:03:57.120 --> 0:04:00.360 regular basis. He's seemingly unaware of the president's weeks and 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:03.360 the president's public remarks on these things. He's unaware of 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:06.480 the media attention on it, and he wants us to 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:09.560 believe that all of these decisions he made, in particular 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:13.080 to intervene in this context, was made in a complete vacuum, 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:16.400 and that nothing else, you know, influenced his thinking on this, 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:18.760 and that he chose intervened for the very first time 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:21.120 in a matter like this with what just happened to 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:26.000 be the president's longtime personal friend who was publicly commenting 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:28.760 on the fact that he never broke he never turned 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:32.240 on the president, and seemingly Bill Barr was unaware of 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:34.920 any of these quotes. Either he just happened to be 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:38.440 in this lovely little, you know, blissfully ignorant vacuum deciding 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:42.799 to intervene. There weren't as many questions about the dropping 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:46.800 of the prosecution of Michael Flynn. Yeah. I think part 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:49.039 of the reason that may have not been pushed on 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.640 as much by the Democrats was simply for the fact 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:54.039 that if I were Attorney General Barr and the question 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:56.880 was posed to me, I would have largely deflected on 0:04:56.960 --> 0:04:59.719 the argument that this is a matter of ongoing litigation 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:02.320 and not going to comment, And that would have been 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:07.400 somewhat consistent with past practices for Democrats and Republicans serving 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:10.200 an Attorney General and testifying before and oversight committee that 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:13.200 because the matter was still the subject of ongoing litigation 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:16.479 and that matter is a subject on an appeal right 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:19.559 now to this full DC circuit, that they can't comment 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:23.400 because it would prejudice or otherwise undermine the Justice Department's position. 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:25.800 That's certainly going to be something I think in the 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:29.120 end here after the election and once that particular litigation 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:31.359 is dealt with, we'll get more details on as to 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:32.880 what really went on here. I mean, that was a 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:35.880 completely unprecedented maneuver for the just Department to come in 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:39.159 and pull the prosecution after they already gotten the guilty 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:43.240 plate based off the technicality about notes on when jurisdiction 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:46.720 was and was not existing for the investigation. I've never 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:49.599 seen that the Justice Departments provided no evidence that they've 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:53.120 ever done that before. It doesn't mean they can't do it, 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:56.600 but it reached just reaped a favoritism. Coming up next 0:05:56.640 --> 0:05:59.760 on Bloomberg Law Bars take on mail and valoting and 0:05:59.800 --> 0:06:03.480 the residential election. I'm June Grosso and this is Bloomberg. 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:06.400 I've been done to Brad Moss of Mark's a about 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:10.440 Attorney General William Barr's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:13.600 He was questioned about the aggressive use of federal force 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:19.720 in response to protests in Washington, d C. And Portland, Oregon. 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:24.760 He didn't seem to back down from his assertions that 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:30.400 federal intervention was needed and they did everything correctly. Yeah. Well, 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:34.000 this is a very much Bill Barr's view on federal 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:36.920 authority and particularly in law enforcements for decades. I mean 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:38.880 there's memos that have come out now from the late 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:41.520 eighties or the nineties of how he wanted to deploy 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:45.520 federal law enforcement when there were riots in the wake 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:48.400 of the Rodney King incident. Who has can all remember 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:51.280 way back to the early nineties with that saga. So 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.160 a lot of what is being pursued here is sort 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:56.960 of his fever dream from decades ago that he finally 0:06:57.000 --> 0:06:59.760 has the ability to implement with the President who's willing 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:02.839 to give him that latitude, and a Department of Homeland 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:06.200 Security that's run by acting leaders who have no will 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:10.800 ability to countermintenment. So DHS has been turned into what 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:13.160 it was never supposed to be. It is now the 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:15.160 you know, the equivalence of what we think of as 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:18.360 an interior ministry in authoritarian countries, where we have the 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:21.480 federal law enforcement that comes in decked out like their 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:24.720 military uniform as if they're operating in Kabul or Fallujah 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:29.920 and they're using military style tactics to confront protesters. Have 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:34.040 there been violent protesters, Absolutely, And I think everybody's agreed 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:36.880 if you engage in that violence, if you deface federal property, 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:39.720 if you assault federal officers, you can be prosecuted and 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.840 convicted for that. But too many times we've seen in 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:45.400 these videos and this reportment's come out of these federal 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:49.520 law enforcement officers, way getting over their skis, way going 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.440 beyond the issue of trying to protect federal property and 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:55.600 protect themselves, which they're entitled to do, and going after 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:59.560 what are otherwise peaceful protesters who are gathering in large 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:02.240 number burs including with you know, you've got the wall 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:04.080 of Moms. You get all these different individuals who were 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:07.040 not engaging in violence. If that's the concern, is that 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:10.920 Bill Barr is using this opportunity to employ measures that 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:14.480 otherwise would never have been permitted. He was questioned about 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:17.560 whether he's talked with President Trump about the use of 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:21.800 troops and whether that would happen in elections. He evaded 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:26.000 the question, but he also indicated that there had been talking. 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:29.679 Bill Barr is nothing if not a very crafty old 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:32.800 school lawyer, and he knew how to kind of dodge 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:36.360 and deflect around the question. I didn't necessarily take the 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:40.560 answers he did provide as indicating or confirming that he 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:44.200 had specifically discussed with the President in the context of 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:47.240 the re election fight, the idea of deploying troops in 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.480 support of that idea and to order to push that agenda. 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:53.199 It doesn't mean he didn't. The answers he gave were 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:55.400 vague enough that he can kind of maneuver around it. 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:58.000 But I think we're seeing with you know, not with 0:08:58.080 --> 0:08:59.959 the locations. I mean, we just got a new announcement 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:02.480 that Operation Legend, which is the code, which is the 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.760 operation name for this whole effort by federal law enforcement, 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.640 is now getting deployed to three battleground states, Michigan, Ohio, 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:13.040 and Wisconsin. It just so happens to be areas where 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:17.520 they're high areas higher numbers of Liberals and Democrats who 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:19.520 happened to be in those areas, and that's where these 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:23.040 federal law enforcements getting deployed. Is there a legitimate reason 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:25.800 for it? There might be in certain respects, but it's 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:28.760 very interesting to note that this is where they're choosing 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:31.600 to deploy their resources. Whether or not it's being done 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:34.200 appropriately is something that's going to be scrutinized heavily in 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:39.160 the coming months. An area that was of concern to 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:42.920 Democrats and I think to a lot of people looking 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:47.280 towards the elections is the fairness of the elections. He 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:51.800 was asked about that and to justify his repeated warnings 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:55.080 about the risks of mail in balloting. Yeah, and this 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:57.600 is somewhere where I wish you would really stick to 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:00.120 his own lane. For lack of a better and at 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:02.640 the Beltway phrase, this is not really his job. That's 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:05.920 a job for the FEC and other entities from the 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:09.160 US government to oversee. It's not his job to be 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:12.800 commenting on mail and balloting procedures. And his answer was 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:15.560 that he didn't have any actual evidence, you know, for example, 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:18.360 that foreign governments were going to print off fake ballots 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:21.959 and submit them. He just said, I have common sense. Well, unfortunately, 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:24.680 for US real lawyers, you need more than that. You 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:28.200 need evidence, and he admits he has none. The President 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:32.400 has admitted he has none. These are various paranoid theories 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:35.000 they have in their mind that they're concerned about because 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:39.040 from a demographic standpoint, they're aware that if mail in 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:42.959 balloting becomes far more expansive and extensive in this upcoming election, 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:46.640 it is more likely to benefit Democrats, who are less 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:50.320 likely to vote from times compared to Republicans, and that's 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:54.240 not something they necessarily want to advocate for. Brad He 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:59.200 was asked about what would happen if there were disputed elections, 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.440 and he kept, I will follow the law. Why didn't 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:05.760 that answer satisfy the Democrats on the committee? Yeah, well, 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:07.880 because it becomes a question. But when he says follow 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:10.760 the law, it's Bill Barr's view of what the law is, 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:12.960 and Bill Barr's view of the law and the view 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:15.160 of a lot of the rest of us doesn't necessarily 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:18.120 always tend to align. It's the same kind of issue 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:21.679 with receiving assistance from a foreign government. He hadn't been 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:24.560 owed around that issue too, and before he finally said no, 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:27.559 they should not be accepting foreign assistant. So the way 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:30.200 he's given this answer is kind of similar to how 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:32.640 the presidents given the answer. And to be very candid, 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:35.839 I hate this question being posed the political candidates or 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:38.959 the senior officials because we don't know what the lecture 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:41.920 will look like, and so do we have any reason 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:45.240 to believe that they will refew that. You know, the 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:47.480 presidents he were to lose and a you know, landslide, 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:51.240 would refuse to concede. No, he'll leave. He'll concede defeat 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:53.840 in whatever way he chooses fit, and he'll leave the 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:57.280 White House in one they're gonna play up this game, 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:00.199 though a little bit partially just because the president fit 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:03.160 from a media perspective. He likes controversy in the news, 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:07.280 it's what he does. But in the ultimate scheme of things, 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:10.319 I don't like the question itself because any candidate, now 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:12.920 Joe Biden, would be kind of a similar answer at points, 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:15.440 because you just don't know what to look like on 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:18.040 election night or election week, whatever it can become at 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:20.800 this point, and you can't commit that you'll accept whatever 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:24.920 it missually comes out because there are legal challenges. You 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:29.280 mentioned his hesitation to say that a president shouldn't accept 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:32.839 foreign help to get elected, and I found that confusing 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:35.880 because that is out and out law. There is no 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:39.360 question about that. It's not fuzzy. And he said, well, 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:42.439 it depends on what kind of help. I don't understand 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:45.920 why he didn't just say, of course not well, for 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:48.319 one reason was most certainly is that he didn't want 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:50.960 to brazenly contradict the president up front the way the 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:54.840 FBI director had. We I'll remember from our pre COVID 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:58.080 days there was a infamous interview between the President and 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:01.520 George Stefanopolis over at ABC, and the President said the 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:04.319 FBI director was wrong to say that it would be 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:07.640 improper to receive foreign assistance in the context of the 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:10.960 election of the president. Clear he'd welcome such information, he'd 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:13.400 want to see it. So the Attorney General, trying to 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:16.760 maintain some manner of you know, civility between itself and 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:19.600 the president, didn't want to be quite as brazen as 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:23.400 the FBI director is my assumption there. But where he 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:25.640 was hemming and hawing. I think on the legal side 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:31.080 is that it's unresolved what would qualify as assistant from 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:33.400 a from a from a criminal standpoint, And this was 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:35.880 some of what the Mueller teams struggled with. If you 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:40.800 simply receive information, not money, is that going to be 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:45.320 enough to violate campaign finance laws. There is no clear 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:49.520 um ruling or standard on that because it's never happened 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:51.920 before in that context, so no one really knows for 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:54.320 sure how the law would play out. I think that's 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:56.760 really ton of General was kind of dancing around the edges. 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:02.160 The Democrats question him about Trump's response to the coronavirus, 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:04.440 which you know, it doesn't seem to really be in 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:08.199 the purview of the Attorney General and the Justice Department, 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:12.200 and he blamed President Obama, which is something that we 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:15.760 heard from the White House. That's another point where you 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:20.640 just question why he's even being asked that. Yeah, I 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:23.600 thought it was I thought it was a rather irrelevant 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:25.920 question to have asked, and I thought his response was 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:30.240 a rather political operative style answered just relying on White 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:32.520 House talking point. It doesn't matter how many times things 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:34.920 have been debunked. I don't know why that question was asked, 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:37.120 because again, if I had been the Interney General and 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:39.160 that question has been post to me in that context, 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:42.600 would have largely deflected saying that's not my purview, that's 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:46.160 the purview of DHS, that's purview of CDC, and you 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:48.880 know entities like that, d o J is supporting them 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:51.560 to extent needed. So that's not really what we handle. 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:55.440 But Bill Barr has been a long time political operative. 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:57.680 He was very clear on that when he came into 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:01.200 this position again which he had held decade earlier, already 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.600 once before, and so he chose to pursue a political 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.840 agenda response. I didn't think it was really befitting of 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:10.160 his position, but that's what he chose to do. He 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:15.880 was questioned about systemic racism in the police. That questioning 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:19.960 was a little more tailored, and the Democrats seem to 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.960 do better in that area. Yeah, and I think that 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:25.920 the Turning General gave what I would characterize at the 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:32.440 very Trump party line response, which is to minimize any 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:35.520 incidents like what happened with George Floyd as the result 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:38.600 of a few bad apples and not reflective of a 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:42.560 larger problem. And this becomes sort of the philosophical debate 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:45.200 between the two parties here as to whether there is 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:48.760 a larger issue at place or whether or not what 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:52.480 we're seeing here is just minor and isolated incidents. When 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:55.440 this happens where there's you know, police violence, I gain 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:57.920 someone like George Floyd, the Tney General will say, well, 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:00.600 that's just a few bad apples. But and there are 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:04.640 a few rioters amongst the largely peaceful protest crowd in 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:07.840 support something like black Lives Matters. It's they're all violent 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:10.960 extremists and arsenists and anarchists. They have they have no 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:14.000 problem painting with a broad brush when they feel it's 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:17.520 most appropriate to them. And that was some myst been 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:19.880 my issue with the White House's response on this and 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:23.840 the Attorney General um serving as that you know, ultimate 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:27.560 spokesperson for the Justice Department. So finally, at the end 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:31.080 of the hearing, Bar got a wrist bump from one 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:35.440 of the Republican congressmen. Was Bar the winner here? I 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:37.800 think if you have to truly declare a winner, I 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:40.520 think you'd have to give Bar just a slight edge 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:45.000 because Democrats didn't really land any true knockout blows on him. 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:48.880 He used the ultimate political inside fighter. He drew them 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:52.040 to a draw. He looked petty, they looked petty. But 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:54.560 he didn't need to quote unquote win. He just needed 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:58.320 to get through it without imploding or without giving in 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:00.320 too much. So did they get what they we needed 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:02.680 out of him? No, And so for that reason I'd 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:07.040 say he wins. Thanks Brad. That's Bradley Moss Apartment, Mark Zaid, 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:10.200 And that's it for the edition of Bloomberg Law. I'm 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:12.960 June Grosso. Thanks so much for listening, and remember to 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:15.320 tune to The Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight at ten 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:17.639 pm Eastern right here on Bloomberg Radio.