On Wednesday, Senator Ted Cruz cheered and applauded Attorney General William Barr for making it through the “Kavanaugh treatment” while he testified before senators about his release of the Mueller report.
After listening to many Democrat senators grill Barr and insinuate that he had misled Americans about the contents of Mueller’s report, Ted Cruz took the stage and drew parallels between the treatment of Barr and now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a man who was subjected to an intense confirmation process after he being accused of sexual assault by the controversial Christine Blasey Ford.
“You’ve had an extraordinarily successful legal career, you didn’t have to take this job, and you step forward and answered the call yet again knowing full well that you would be subject to the kind of slanderous treatment, the Kavanaugh treatment, that we have seen of senators impugning your integrity,” said Cruz in his opening remarks.
“And I, for one, am grateful that you answered that call and are leading the Department of Justice both with integrity and fidelity to law. That is what the nation rightly expects of our attorney general. And I believe you are performing that very ably.” he continued.
The Texas senator continued and said that Wednesday’s hearing should be “revealing” to anyone watching.
“I think this hearing today has been quite revealing to anyone watching it, although perhaps not for the reasons some of the Democratic senators intended,” Said Cruz. He went on to call out Democrat lawmakers for their “extreme rhetoric” during the investigation. He also slamed the Dems for hardly mentioning the word “Russia” during the hearing, but instead focusing on a letter Robert Mueller reportedly sent to Barr where the special counsel said he was unsatisfied with Barr’s public summary of the investigation.
“The principal attack that the Democratic senators have marshaled upon you concerns this March 27th letter from Robert Mueller, and it’s an attack that I want people to understand just how revealing it is. Because if this is their whole argument, they ain’t got nothing,” he said.
He also went on to say that the Dems have an “exceptionally weak argument” if their major concern with Barr is simply how he summarized the report, rather than the report’s actual contents.
“Their entire argument is: General Barr, you suppressed the 19 pages that are entirely public, that we have, that we can read, that they know every word of it, and their complaint is it was delayed a few weeks,” said Cruz.
He continued, “And that was because of your decision not to release the report piecemeal but rather to release those 19 pages, along with the entire 448 pages produced by the Special Counsel.”
“Yes,” Barr replied.
“If that is their argument, I have to say that is an exceptionally weak argument,” said Cruz, which made the attorney general laugh. “Because if you’re hiding something, I’ll tell you right now, General Barr, you’re doing a very lousy job of hiding it. Because the thing that they’re suggesting you hid, you released, to Congress and the American people.”
