Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is demanding that Attorney General William Barr bring a letter from special counsel Robert Mueller raising concerns about his four-page March memo to a Senate hearing on Wednesday. “There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations,” Mueller wrote in the letter, according to the Post.
“In light of Mueller’s letter, the misleading nature of Barr’s 4/10 testimony & 4/18 press conference is even more glaring. Barr must bring the letter with him when he testifies in the Senate tomorrow,” Schumer said in a tweet on Tuesday night.
He added that “it’s time for Mueller to testify publicly. Now.”
{mosads}Schumer’s tweet comes after The Washington Post reported that the special counsel wrote in a letter that Barr’s March 24 memo did not “capture the context, nature, and substance” of his findings on Russia’s election interference and the Trump campaign.
But Democrats have seized on reports of the letter from Mueller to reignite their questions over Barr’s handling of the report on the two-year investigation into Russia’s election meddling in the 2016 election.
Barr is scheduled to testify on Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he will likely face a grilling over the letter, which was released less than a day before his hearing.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the panel, told CNN on Tuesday that he believed Barr, whom he voted against, remained unfit for his position.
“I believe he is unfit, even more so today. … What the remedy should be, I’m going to be talking to my colleagues,” he said.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) added in a tweet that Barr is a “chief propagandist” for Trump and should resign.