Harris demands Barr testify after memo ties him to Trump’s call with Ukraine leader

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) is demanding that Attorney General William Barr appear before Congress and give her a definitive answer on whether President Trump’s administration ever requested he investigate anyone. 

The 2020 presidential candidate made the call just hours after the White House released a memo of a July phone call in which Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to work with Barr and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden over allegations of corruption.{mosads}

Harris, an outspoken critic of Trump and Barr, raised alarm over the developments, pointing to footage from May of the attorney general’s congressional testimony regarding former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report. 

“I asked Attorney General Barr in May: did the White House ever ask him to investigate anyone? He wouldn’t answer,” she said on Twitter. “Barr needs to come back to Congress and answer that question again. Under oath.”

I asked Attorney General Barr in May: did the White House ever ask him to investigate anyone? He wouldn’t answer.

Barr needs to come back to Congress and answer that question again. Under oath.

This time, he better have an answer. https://t.co/ybObJ1GC53

— Kamala Harris (@SenKamalaHarris) September 25, 2019

During a Senate Judiciary Committee in May, Harris appeared to catch Barr off guard when she asked him whether the White House had ever asked or suggested he open up an investigation into anyone. 

Barr hesitated, before asking the senator to repeat the question. He later said he was being cautious because he was “trying to grapple with the word ‘suggest.'”