AG Barr: ‘I Was Surprised’ Mueller Let Me Decide on Obstruction

During his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, Attorney General William Barr criticized Robert Mueller‘s investigation several times and said he was surprised as to why the special counsel let him make a decision on obstruction charges against President Donald Trump.

“As to obstruction of justice, were you surprised he was going to let you decide?” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asked.

“Yes, I was surprised,” Barr replied, adding that he thought the “very purpose” of Mueller’s investigation was to make their own prosecutive judgment on the matter.

“[What] was confusing to me is that the investigation carried on for a while as additional episodes were looked into — episodes involving the president,” Barr added. “And so my question is or was, why were those investigated if, at the end of the day, you weren’t going to reach a decision on them?”

Later in the hearing during a line of questioning from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Barr said that it was Mueller’s responsibility to make a charging decision if he found sufficient evidence of obstruction against Trump.

“I’m not really sure of [Mueller’s] reasoning,” Barr continued — referencing the special counsel’s choice to leave the question of obstruction to the Justice Department.

“I really could not recapitulate his analysis, which is one of the reasons in my March 24th letter I simply stated the fact that he did not reach a conclusion and didn’t try to put words in his mouth,” he added. “I think that if he felt that he shouldn’t go down the path of making a traditional prosecutive decision, then he shouldn’t have investigated. That was the time to pull up.”

Watch the segments above, via CNN.