Some elected officials from California were quick to stake out their positions Thursday on the special counsel's report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Others took a more methodical approach.
East Bay congressman and presidential candidate Eric Swalwell is calling on Attorney General William Barr to resign.
“He came to this job already biased,” Swalwell said in a statement while campaigning in New Hampshire. “He made a show of allegiance to the President over the American people by declaring ‘no collusion’ and excusing the President on the basis of his emotional state. He has proved that he’s an embedded Trump ally who puts this President’s political future above of the rule of law. That makes him unfit to serve. He must resign.”
Other California representatives weren’t impressed with Barr's press conference either.
Sen. Kamala Harris, who is also running for president, said it was “filled with political spin and propaganda,” and called on Barr to turn over an unredacted copy to the Senate Intelligence Committee, which she sits on.
San Jose congresswoman Zoe Lofgren said Barr revealed during the press conference that he was partisan.
“He's not the president's lawyer. He’s the attorney general,” Lofgren said. “His behavior is a pretty dramatic departure from the standards that attorneys general have had in both Republican and Democratic administrations in modern times.”
Lofgren said Barr has agreed to appear before the House Judiciary Committee.
If the attorney general appears before the House Oversight Committee, too, Silicon Valley congressman Ro Khanna said he would “ask Mueller to detail why and how Russia interfered, why and how the Trump campaign benefited and what he would recommend we do in terms of strengthening our laws and our enforcement to make sure this never happens again.”
Contra Costa County Rep. Mark DeSaulnier said Barr’s defense of the executive branch reminded him of John N. Mitchell, President Richard Nixon’s attorney general, who served 19 months in prison for his actions in the Watergate scandal.
The report is further proof that the Russians weaponized social media to influence the 2016 presidential election, he said.
“American voters need to know how active a foreign government — a foreign government that does not believe in democracy — how active they were in trying to sway our election,” he said.
DeSaulnier said he’ll best be able to use the facts of the investigation if he and his staffers take a methodical approach to understanding the entire report. He said he’s glad members of Congress get extra help from staff attorneys and committee investigators sifting through all 448 pages of Mueller’s 22-month investigation.
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