[Vause:] Well, it was a Democrat free-for-all on Tuesday when the U.S. attorney general appeared on Capitol Hill. He was grilled over a seemingly countless number of controversies, and through it all, he remained smug, and he stonewalled lawmakers. Manu Raju has details.
[Manu Raju, Cnn Senior Congressional Correspondent:] Attorney General Bill Barr on the hot seat, facing the House Judiciary Committee for the first time in his tenure. And Democrats had a litany of concerns, accusing Barr of using the Justice Department to do the political bidding of a president who has abused his power.
[Rep. Jerry Nadler:] You have aided and abetted the worst feelings of the president.
[Raju:] Barr fired back.
[William Barr, U.s. Attorney General:] He has told me from the start that he expects me to exercise my independent judgment to make whatever call I think is right, and that is precisely what I've done.
[Raju:] Republicans came to Barr's defense, saying he was being treated unfairly.
[Rep. Doug Collins:] We're seeming to just contort ourselves to get to some way to show that you have nefarious motive.
[Raju:] Barr came under fire for his role in ordering peaceful protesters to be forcibly cleared from Lafayette Square last month in front of the White House, allowing the president to cross the street for a photo-op in front of a church.
[Rep. Pramila Jayapal:] Do you think that it was appropriate at Lafayette Park to pepper spray, tear gas, and beat protesters and injure American citizens?
[Barr:] Well, I don't accept your characterization of what happened, but as I explained, the effort there was
[Jayapal:] Mr. Barr, I just asked for a yes or no, so let me just tell you, because I'm starting to lose my temper.
[Raju:] While also defending the actions of federal agents, sent to respond to protests in Portland, Oregon, even though local officials there say the Trump administration has only made the tense situation worse.
[Barr:] The U.S. Marshals have a duty to stop that and defend the courthouse, and that's what we are doing in Portland.
[Raju:] The protests have escalated in the wake of the killing of George Floyd an unarmed black man, at the hands of Minneapolis police, but Barr pointedly denied there's an issue with systemic racism in law enforcement.
[Barr:] It seems far more likely that the problem stems from a complex mix of factors.
[Raju:] Barr has intervened in cases involving the president's associates, seeking to dismiss a criminal case against former national security advisor Michael Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI; and seeking a lighter sentence for the president's longtime friend Roger Stone, who was convicted on seven charges, including witness tampering, lying to Congress and obstructing a proceeding. While President Trump later commuted Stone's sentence, Barr told the House committee that the prosecutors' recommended sentence of 7 to 9 years was too severe.
[Rep. Ted Deutch:] Can you think of any cases where the defendant threatened to kill a witness, threatened to threatened a judge, lied to a judge, where the Department of Justice claimed that those were mere technicalities. Can you think of even one?
[Barr:] The judge agreed with our
[Deutch:] Can you think of even one? I'm not asking about the judge. I'm asking about what you did to reduce the sentence of of Roger Stone.
[Barr:] Yes, there are
[Deutch:] Can you think Mr. Attorney General, he threatened the life of a witness
[Barr:] And the witness said he didn't feel threatened.
[Deutch:] and you view that as a technicality? The appearances is that, as you said earlier, this is exactly what you want. The essence of rule of law is that we have one rule for everybody.
[Barr:] That's right.
[Deutch:] And we don't in this case, because he's a friend of the president.
[Raju:] Now Democrats' concern with Bill Barr stem back to last year, his handling of the Mueller report. They believe he mischaracterized that report when he put out an initial summary, but also fighting with him in court to try to get more documents related to that report. And also, during the hearing, there was an exchange between David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat, and Bill Barr. Cicilline asked whether or not it's appropriate at all for any campaign to ask for any foreign assistance whatsoever. First, Bill Barr responded it depends on what kind of assistance. Cicilline was perplexed. He pushed further, and Cicilline eventually Barr responded, No, it's not appropriate. Manu Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.
[Vause:] Norman Eisen is Democrat counsel during the Trump impeachment. His latest book is, "A Case for the American People: The United States v. Donald J. Trump." He was also ethics czar for the Obama White House. Norm, it's been a long time, so good to see you.
[Norman Eisen, Author, "a Case For The American People":] John, great to be back with you.
[Vause:] OK. Very quickly, let's start with the big picture to TO this hearing. Barr testified that President Trump told him, Exercise independent judgment. Given how vocal Trump has been on issues like sentencing of his friends, saying, Be independent, that seems a bit like the mob boss saying, I can trust you to do the right thing.
[Eisen:] That's right, John. This is like two Mafiosi talking for the federal wiretap. If you look at Barr's career, the Mueller report, where he lied about the Mueller report. I'm not saying that. A federal judge said he misrepresented. Ukraine. He came up with an excuse not to turn over the whistleblower report. His DOJ did it anyway. Over 70 inspectors general said was false. COVID, where a Hawaii judge threw out his effort to defend the president's behavior. And and of course, the protests where he lied today about not using tear gas. I mean, that is the opposite of independent judgment, and he just dug that grave deeper in the hearing today.
[Vause:] Well, in his own defense, Barr posed this rhetorical question to lawmakers. Here he is.
[Barr:] I'm supposedly punishing the president's enemies and helping his friends? What enemies have I indicted? Who could you point to one indictment that has been under the department that you feel is is unmerited? That you feel violates the rule of law? One indictment.
[Vause:] You know, the question is very narrow. There are many actions an attorney general can take. Indictment is just one of them. So how would you respond to Mr. Barr?
[Eisen:] Well, John, in my book, "A Case for the American People," I describe Trump's crimes, but if Trump is the criminal in chief, Barr is the enabler in chief. And he's like the jailer who beats an inmate with a rubber hose and then says, Show me the bruises. What he did on the Mueller report, the lies on Ukraine, on COVID, on these protesters, those are all things done to lash out at the president's enemies.
[Vause:] For the most part, Barr was sort of smug. He stonewalled Democrats when it came to controversies like Trump using his pardon power to commute the prison sentence for his friend and convicted liar, Roger Stone. Here's an exchange between Barr and Rep. Eric Swalwell.
[Rep. Eric Swalwell:] You said that, that a president swapping a pardon to silence a witness would be a crime. You were promising the American people that if you saw that, you would do something about it. Is that right?
[Barr:] That's right.
[Swalwell:] Now, Mr. Barr, are you investigating Donald Trump for commuting the prison sentence of his longtime friend and political adviser, Roger Stone?
[Barr:] No.
[Swalwell:] Why not?
[Barr:] Why should I?
[Vause:] The judge was very clear. In the rulings he said, you know, Roger Stone was not standing up for the president. He was covering up for the president. So again, respond to the attorney general. Why should he?
[Eisen:] Well, because the reason that Barr should investigate is because there's a lot of evidence of an obstruction of justice conspiracy. I lay that out in my book, John, and including new evidence pinpointing a critical call that Roger Stone made. Stone has the dirt on Trump's desire to have Russia intervene in our elections, and Trump has dangled and then given this commutation in exchange for Stone staying mum.
[Vause:] Finally, there was an exchange between Rep. Jayapal and William Barr. And she made the point here that he is the attorney general for the entire country, the United States of America, not just President Trump. Here she is.
[Jayapal:] There is a real discrepancy in how you react as the attorney general, the top cop in this country, when white men with swastikas storm a government building with guns. There is no need for the president to, quote, "activate you," because they're getting the president's personal agenda done. But when black people and people of color protest police brutality, systemic racism and the president's very own lack of response to those critical issues, then you forcibly remove them with armed federal officers, pepper bombs, because they are considered terrorists by the president.
[Vause:] You know, Barr didn't even really try and address it. But you know, no matter the controversy with William Barr, it seems this double standard is at the heart of it.
[Eisen:] Well, that's that's right, John. And that is the opposite of what we expect in the American rule of law system. The attorney general is supposed to be independent. And I was so glad that Congresswoman Jayapal spoke out about that. And one other thing we saw today that was very troubling, and I got notes from people in the room, Barr behaved differently towards the members of Congress who were women and people of color. So there are multiple double standards going on here. That's terrible in anyone, but in the man who is in charge of enforcing our civil rights laws and assuring that there's equality under law, it is a doubly troubling double standard.
[Vause:] Norm, great to see you, thanks.
[Eisen:] Nice to see you, thanks.
[Vause:] In the coming hours, CEOs from four of the world's most powerful and influential companies will be the focus of an historic antitrust hearing, the first by the U.S. Congress in more than 20 years. Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook will face questions about their dominance of the tech economy and whether they have too much control. Here's CNN's Clare Sebastian with details.
[Clare Sebastian, Cnn Correspondent:] When these four CEOs come before Congress, albeit remotely, it will be hard to know who is the most powerful in the room.
[Rep. David Cicilline:] Google controls nearly all the search market in the United States. Amazon controls nearly half of all online commerce in the United States. Facebook has approximately 2.7 billion monthly active users across its platforms. And finally, Apple is under increasing scrutiny for abusing its role as both a player and a referee in the app stores.
[Sebastian:] A yearlong congressional investigation is looking for ways to check that power in what experts say will require a new understanding of U.S. competition law.
[William Kovacic, Former Chairman, Federal Trade Commission:] A major point of these hearings is to move away from a conception of competition law as focusing on the well-being of citizens as purchasers of goods and services, and to adopt a broader conception that looks at the citizen as an employee, as a resident of a community, as a consumer of news.
[Sebastian:] The four companies have all denied anti-competitive behavior.
[Nathan Sutton, Associate General Counsel, Amazon:] We did not use any seller data for to compete with them.
[Sebastian:] Apple even commissioning a study last week that found its app store commission rates were in line with others. Several have also voiced concerns that regulation might make them less competitive globally.
[Sundar Pichai, Google & Alphabet Ceo:] I worry that, if you regulate for the sake of regulating it, there's a lot of unintended consequences. You know, if you take a technology like artificial intelligence, you know you know, it will have implications for our national security and you know, and how or for other important areas of society.
[Sebastian:] And yet, even as the COVID-19 pandemic has made these companies ever more essential and more valuable, they've been facing growing backlash. Protests over safety at Amazon, and an advertiser boycott of Facebook over hate speech.
[Kovacic:] I think they come into the hearing not with the halo, but with great concerns about exactly whose side they're on. And that should be a matter of concern. Again, you look at the mood of the Congress, you look at how Republicans joined Democrats today in scolding these companies, that's a combustible environment for the leading enterprises.
[Sebastian:] The House investigation is expected to lead to a recommendation for new legislation, perhaps bringing greater scrutiny of tech acquisitions: Deals like Facebook's purchases of WhatsApp and Instagram, and Google buying YouTube and Fitbit. It could also ramp up the pressure on other ongoing investigations. A delicate moment for these titans of tech. Clare Sebastian, CNN, New York.
[Vause:] The clothing industry, one of the biggest polluters on the planet. It's an inconvenient truth for fashionistas. Ahead, though, a new way to eliminate toxic waste water from factories.