    [House Hearing, 116 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                     OVERSIGHT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE:
                      POLITICAL INTERFERENCE AND THREATS TO
                      PROSECUTORIAL INDEPENDENCE

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                         U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                         ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                            WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 2020

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 116-81

                                   __________

             Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                   Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov

                                   __________

                        U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    45-890                      WASHINGTON : 2021

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                        JERROLD NADLER, New York, Chair
                   MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania, Vice-Chair

    ZOE LOFGREN, California              JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Ranking Member
    SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas            F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr.,
    STEVE COHEN, Tennessee                   Wisconsin
    HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,      STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
        Georgia                          LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
    THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida          DOUG COLLINS, Georgia
    KAREN BASS, California               KEN BUCK, Colorado
    CEDRIC L. RICHMOND, Louisiana        MARTHA ROBY, Alabama
    HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York         MATT GAETZ, Florida
    DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island     MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
    ERIC SWALWELL, California            ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
    TED LIEU, California                 TOM McCLINTOCK, California
    JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland               DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona
    PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington          GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
    VAL BUTLER DEMINGS, Florida          BEN CLINE, Virginia
    J. LUIS CORREA, California           KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota
    SYLVIA R. GARCIA, Texas              W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida
    JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
    LUCY McBATH, Georgia
    GREG STANTON, Arizona
    MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
    DEBBIE MUCARSEL-POWELL, Florida
    VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas

            PERRY APELBAUM, Majority Staff Director & Chief Counsel
                   CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Minority Staff Director
                                     ------
                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                            Wednesday, June 24, 2020

                                                                       Page

                               OPENING STATEMENTS

    The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the Committee on the
      Judiciary from the State of New York...........................     2
    The Honorable Jim Jordan, Ranking Member of the Committee on the
      Judiciary from the State of Ohio...............................     4

                                   WITNESSES

    Donald Ayer, Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University Law Center
      Oral Testimony.................................................    19
      Written Testimony..............................................    23
    John W. Elias, Trial Attorney, Antitrust Division, U.S.
      Department of Justice
      Oral Testimony.................................................    42
      Written Testimony..............................................    44
    Michael B. Mukasey, Former Attorney General, U.S. Department of
      Justice
      Oral Testimony.................................................    52
      Written Testimony..............................................    55
    Aaron S.J. Zelinsky, Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney's
      Office for the District of Maryland
      Oral Testimony.................................................    61
      Written Testimony..............................................    63

              LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

    A letter from Bradley Weinsheimer to Davis Z. Seide, Government
      Accountability Project, June 18, 2020, submitted by the
      Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the Committee on the
      Judiciary from the State of New York for the record............    10
    A letter from Bradley Weinsheimer to Robert S. Litt, Morrison
      Foerster, June 22, 2020, submitted by the Honorable Jerrold
      Nadler, Chair of the Committee on the Judiciary from the State
      of New York for the record.....................................    13
    A letter from Bradley Weinsheimer to Davis Z. Seide, Government
      Accountability Project, June 23, 2020, submitted by the
      Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the Committee on the
      Judiciary from the State of New York for the record............    15
    A letter from Bradley Weinsheimer to Davis Z. Seide, Government
      Accountability Project, June 18, 2020, submitted by the
      Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the Committee on the
      Judiciary from the State of New York for the record............    78
    A letter from Davis Z. Seide, Government Accountability Project
      to Bradley Weinsheimer, Associate Deputy Attorney General, June
      22, 2020, submitted by the Honorable Chair Jerrold Nadler,
      Chair of the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of New
      York for the record............................................    81
    A letter from Bradley Weinsheimer to Davis Z. Seide, Government
      Accountability Project, June 23, 2020, submitted by the
      Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the Committee on the
      Judiciary from the State of New York for the record............    83
    A letter from Robert S. Litt, Morrison Foerster, June 19, 2020 to
      Bradley Weinsheimer, submitted by the Honorable Jerrold Nadler,
      Chair of the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of New
      York for the record............................................    85
    A letter from Bradley Weinsheimer to Robert S. Litt, Morrison
      Foerster, June 22, 2020, submitted by the Honorable Jerrold
      Nadler, Chair of the Committee on the Judiciary from the State
      of New York for the record.....................................    88
    Corresponce between Robert S. Litt, Morrison Foerster, and
      Bradley Weinsheimer, June 22-23, 2020, submitted by the
      Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the Committee on the
      Judiciary from the State of New York for the record............    90
    A memorandum entitled ``Additional Requirements for the Opening
      of Certain Sensitive Investigations,'' from Attorney General
      William Barr, submitted by the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Member
      of the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of California
      for the record.................................................    98
    A letter from U.S. Department of Justice alumni, submitted by the
      Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Member of the Committee on the
      Judiciary from the State of Texas for the record...............   108
    A letter from the Office of Professional Responsibility of the
      U.S. Department of Justice, submitted by the Honorable Doug
      Collins, a Member of the Committee on the Judiciary from the
      State of New York for the record...............................   120
    A letter entitled ``DOJ Alumni Statement on the Events
      Surrounding the Sentencing of Roger Stone,'' submitted by the
      Honorable David Cicilline, a Member of the Committee on the
      Judiciary from the State of Rhode Island for the record........   140
    A statement from former U.S. Attorneys and Assistant U.S.
      Attorneys for the Southern District of New York, submitted by
      the Honorable Eric Swalwell, a Member of the Committee on the
      Judiciary from the State of California for the record..........   152
    A letter to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse from Assistant Attorney
      General Stephen E. Boyd, submitted by the Honorable Jim Jordan,
      Ranking Member of the Committee on the Judiciary from the State
      of Ohio for the record.........................................   170
    An article entitled ``I left the Justice Department after it made
      a disastrous mistake. It just happened again,'' submitted by
      the Honorable Sylvia Garcia, a Member of the Committee on the
      Judiciary from the State of Texas for the record...............   178
    A letter from former professionals of the Antitrust Division of
      the U.S. Department of Justice, submitted by the Honorable Lucy
      McBath, a Member of the Committee on the Judiciary from the
      State of Georgia for the record................................   190
    An article entitled ``Barr, Wray and top security officials: Help
      us protect the 2020 elections and your vote,'' submitted by the
      Honorable Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Member of the Committee on
      the Judiciary from the State of Florida for the record.........   198

                                    APPENDIX

    An article entitled ``10 Top Antitrust Experts Alarmed by
      Whistleblower Complaint Against A.G. Barr--and Office of
      Professional Responsibility's Opinion,'' submitted by the
      Honorable Eric Swalwell, a Member of the Committee on the
      Judiciary from the State of California for the record..........   206

      OVERSIGHT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE: POLITICAL INTERFERENCE AND
                     THREATS TO PROSECUTORIAL INDEPENDENCE

                                  ----------

                            Wednesday, June 24, 2020

                            House of Representatives

                           Committee on the Judiciary

                                 Washington, DC

        The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 12:14 p.m., in Room
    CVC-200, Congressional Auditorium, Hon. Jerrold Nadler [Chair
    of the committee] presiding.
        Present: Representatives Nadler, Lofgren, Jackson Lee,
    Cohen, Johnson of Georgia, Deutch, Richmond, Jeffries,
    Cicilline, Swalwell, Lieu, Raskin, Jayapal, Correa, Scanlon,
    Garcia, Neguse, McBath, Stanton, Dean, Murcarsel-Powell,
    Escobar, Jordan, Chabot, Gohmert, Collins, Buck, Gaetz, Johnson
    of Louisiana, Biggs, McClintock, Lesko, Reschenthaler, Cline,
    and Armstrong.
        Staff present: Aaron Hiller, Deputy Chief Counsel; Amy
    Rutkin, Chief of Staff; Arya Hariharan, Deputy Chief Oversight
    Counsel; Madeline Strasser, Chief Clerk; Moh Sharma, Member
    Services and Outreach Advisor; Priyanka Mara, Professional
    Staff Member/Legislative Aide; Jordan Dashow, Professional
    Staff Member; Anthony Valdez, Staff Assistant; John Williams,
    Parliamentarian; Chris Hixon, Minority Staff Director; Stephen
    Castor, Minority General Counsel; Katy Rother, Minority General
    Counsel and Parliamentarian; Ella Yates, Minority Director of
    Member Services and Coalitions; Caroline Nabity, Minority
    Counsel; Kyle Smithwick, Minority Counsel; Anudeep Buddharaju,
    Minority Counsel; Michael Koren, Minority Professional Staff
    Member; and Kiley Bidelman, Minority Clerk.
        Chair Nadler. The Committee on the Judiciary will come to
    order.
        Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare
    recesses of the Committee at any time.
        We welcome everyone to this afternoon's hearing on
    ``Oversight of the Department of Justice: Political
    Interference and Threats to Prosecutorial Independence.''
    Before we begin, I would like to remind Members that we have
    established an email address and distribution list dedicated to
    circulating exhibits, motions, or other written materials that
    Members might want to offer as part of our hearing today. If
    you would like to submit materials, please send them to the
    email that has been previously distributed to your offices, and
    we will circulate the materials to Members and staff as quickly
    as we can.
        I would also remind all Members that guidance from the
    Office of Attending Physician states that face coverings are
    required for all meetings in an enclosed space, such as
    Committee hearings. Everybody attending this hearing is
    required to follow this guidance. This is for the health and
    safety of all of us in this room, including our staff and for
    the loved ones we will return to at the end of the day. I
    expect all Members on both sides of the aisle to wear a mask
    except when you are speaking.
        I will now recognize myself for an opening statement.
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Mr. Chair, point of parliamentary
    inquiry.
        Chair Nadler. Last Friday without explanation, Attorney
    General William Barr announced that Geoffrey Berman, the United
    States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, was
    ``stepping down.'' This was, of course, untrue. Mr. Berman had
    not resigned. In his statement, Mr. Berman made clear that he
    had no intention of resigning and every intention of moving
    forward with his work without delay or interruption. He
    emphasized that point. He wanted to stay on the job to ensure
    that his work would continue unimpeded.
        To understand the stakes in this standoff, it is important
    to note that the work of Mr. Berman's office has included a
    number of criminal investigations aimed at investigations close
    to President Trump. Among them, the President's attorney,
    Michael Cohen, the President's Inaugural Committee, and Rudy
    Giuliani, the President's current counsel, campaign advisor,
    and direct line to Kiev. On Saturday, Mr. Barr attempted to
    fire Mr. Berman directly. Even then, Mr. Berman resisted. Only
    when he was certain that his deputy, a qualified career
    prosecutor, would take his place as Acting U.S. Attorney, did
    he relent and step aside.
        So, what are we to make of these events? If this had been
    an isolated incident, if the Attorney General had simply
    misjudged the situation and thought that Mr. Berman would go
    quietly, then we might chalk up this episode to simple
    miscommunication and incompetence. Make no mistake, this was
    not an isolated incident. The effort to remove Mr. Berman is
    part of a clear and dangerous pattern of conduct that began
    when Mr. Barr took office and continues to this day. Mr. Barr's
    action made clear that in his Department of Justice, the
    President's allies get special treatment, the President's
    enemies, real and imagined, are targeted for extra scrutiny,
    and the needs of the American people and the needs of justice
    are generally ignored.
        Mr. Barr's practice of using the Department to shield the
    President and his allies goes back to the beginning of his
    tenure at the DOJ. Last year, when the Special Counsel had
    completed his investigation, when Mr. Barr had the report in
    hand, but before the public could read it, the Attorney General
    blatantly mischaracterized the Special Counsel's findings, and
    he did so on the President's behalf. Among other deceptions,
    Mr. Barr pretended that compelling evidence of obstruction of
    justice, including evidence that the President may have lied
    directly to the Special Counsel, simply did not exist. Mr.
    Barr's deception seems blatant, but don't take my word for it.
    The Special Counsel wrote to Mr. Barr directly to complain
    about the inaccuracies which lingered uncorrected for weeks. A
    Federal judge later said that Mr. Barr's inconsistencies were
    so distorted and misleading, that he questioned Mr. Barr's
    credibility and, in turn, could not trust the Department's
    assurances to the Court about the contents of the Mueller
    Report. Mr. Barr has also worked to undermine the criminal
    cases stemming from the Special Counsel's report.
        Early this year, after the President's associate, Roger
    Stone, was convicted of obstructing justice, Mr. Barr overruled
    his career prosecutors and recommended a lighter sentence for
    President Trump's friend. One of those prosecutors, Mr.
    Zelinsky, will testify today about that experience. We should
    be clear about the timeline in the Stone case. If nothing else,
    it helps explain why Mr. Berman refused to go quietly over the
    weekend.
        In January, Mr. Barr removed the U.S. Attorney for the
    District of Columbia and replaced her with his long-time aide.
    In February, President Trump tweeted his feelings about Stone's
    ongoing criminal case. The President was outraged that Mr.
    Stone, his friend, might be punished for obstructing justice.
    Quickly thereafter, Mr. Barr reached into the case, overruled
    his prosecutors, and submitted a wildly lenient sentencing
    recommendation for Mr. Stone. All four prosecutors involved in
    the case, including Mr. Zelinsky, immediately withdrew. The
    next day, President Trump tweeted his congratulations to Mr.
    Barr.
        The Stone case wasn't an isolated incident either. In May,
    Mr. Barr abruptly reversed course in the prosecution of Michael
    Flynn, the President's former national security advisor, who
    pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with
    the Russian ambassador. Once again, the President tweeted his
    feelings about the case. Once again, Mr. Barr reached into the
    proceedings, overruled his career prosecutors, misrepresented
    statements by Department officials, and asked the Court to
    dismiss the charges against Mr. Flynn, and once again, the
    President tweeted his delight at the outcome.
        Former Federal Judge John Gleason, appointed by the Court
    to account for Mr. Barr's unprecedented motion to dismiss the
    case against Mr. Flynn, argued that, ``The facts surrounding
    the filing of the Government's motion constitute clear evidence
    of gross prosecutorial abuse. They reveal an unconvincing
    effort to disguise as legitimate a decision to dismiss that is
    based solely on the fact that Flynn is a political ally of
    President Trump.'' Judge Gleason was not alone. Days after Mr.
    Barr insisted on dropping charges against Mr. Flynn, almost
    2,000 former FBI agents and Department of Justice officials
    wrote an open letter calling for the Attorney General's
    resignation.
        Now, my Republican colleagues may try to explain these
    incidents away. They may tell you that Barr's attempts to fire
    Berman were harmless, that Flynn and Stone should be excused
    for their crimes, and that Mr. Barr's extraordinary attempts to
    protect the President from criminal liability are necessary to
    correct for a vast conspiracy at the Justice Department. Those
    excuses ring hollow. There is injustice at the Justice
    Department, ladies, and gentlemen, as there is extensive
    injustice in our justice system nationwide.
        We have rightly focused on one major aspect of that
    injustice in recent weeks since the murder of George Floyd at
    the hands of law enforcement officers. As we prepare to address
    that injustice on the House floor in the single largest and
    most sweeping package of police reforms in our country's
    history, I cannot help but notice that the Members who tend to
    shout loudest about hoaxes and witch hunts also stand in
    opposition to these commonsense reforms. Ask yourselves, what
    are you saying to the American people when your commitment to
    justice means that you will stand up for Flynn, Stone, and
    Barr, but go no further?
        No, Mr. Barr's work at the Department of Justice has
    nothing to do with correcting injustice. He is the President's
    fixer. He has shown us that there is one set of rules for the
    President's friends and another set of rules for the rest of
    us. To be clear, there are plenty of reasons to be angry with
    Attorney General Barr. It is unacceptable that he would order
    the Antitrust Division to initiate pretextual investigations
    into industries that he and the President do not like simply
    because they do not like them. Mr. Elias will testify to that
    abuse today. It is dangerous and misguided for him to threaten
    frivolous litigation against State and local officials doing
    their best to contain the COVID-19 epidemic in their
    communities. It is simply irresponsible for him to do so in the
    total absence of guidance from the White House or leadership
    from the President.
        It is outrageous that Mr. Barr occupied this city with a
    Federal police force outfitted in paramilitary gear, and then
    turned that force on peaceful protestors in Lafayette Square,
    spraying them with teargas and physically knocking them back,
    all to arrange for an awkward photo op for President Trump. The
    images from that day are so disturbing that we cannot blame Mr.
    Barr for trying to avoid responsibility for his role in the
    event in the days since. Please understand that these are
    merely the symptoms of an underlying disease. The sickness that
    we must address is Mr. Barr's use of the Department of Justice
    as a weapon to serve the President's petty private interests.
    The cancer that we must root out is his decision to place the
    President's interests above the interests of the American
    people.
        Our witnesses today will speak to the extremes to which Mr.
    Barr has reached to carry out the President's bidding. I am
    especially grateful to Mr. Elias and Mr. Zelinsky, who are
    current Department employees, for their bravery in appearing
    before the committee. This Administration has a record of
    witness intimidation, and I have no doubt that they will try to
    exact a price for your testimony. You are patriots, and you
    have done your duty here today. It gives me hope for what may
    come at the Department of Justice when Bill Barr is finally
    removed. I thank the witnesses for being here today, and I look
    forward to your testimony.
        I now recognize the Ranking Member of the Judiciary
    Committee, the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Jordan, for his opening
    statement.
        Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Barr Justice
    Department is about correcting injustice. You almost have to
    laugh at this. The very day you have a hearing going after the
    Barr Justice Department and alleging that there are politics
    involved there, the very day we get the order from the United
    States Court of Appeals dismissing the Flynn case. ``The
    District Court is directed to grant the government's motion to
    dismiss the District Court's order. Appointing amicus is hereby
    vacated.'' I mean, they are not political. They are just right.
    Again, you would almost have to laugh if it wasn't so serious.
        Attorney General Holder said he was Obama's wing man. The
    Obama-Biden Justice Department attacked investigative
    journalists. Here is what one of them said. Here is what one of
    them said. James Risen with the New York Times said this: ``If
    a President throws a whistleblower in jail for trying to talk
    to a reporter or gets the FBI to spy on a journalist, he will
    have one man to thank for bequeathing him such expansive power:
    Barack Obama.'' That is not me talking. That is James Risen of
    the New York Times when the Justice Department, the Obama-
    Holder-Biden Justice Department, went after him.
        Of course, we know about Fast and Furious. We know about
    Operation Choke Point. Even though Chair always doesn't want to
    talk about this, we know how political the Justice Department
    was in the whole Russia hoax, the whole Trump-Russia
    investigation. Remember this: The Obama-Biden Department of
    Justice spied on four American citizens. That is the big thing
    you guys have with Bill Barr, too. The first time he testified
    in front of the Senate, he used the word ``spying,'' and
    everyone went crazy, but he used the word ``spying'' because
    that is exactly what happened. They spied on four American
    citizens associated with the Presidential campaign, an
    investigation we now know was completely bogus because Rick
    Burnell released all the transcripts from all the people who
    were involved in the intelligence community in the previous
    Administrations, and they all said there was nothing there.
        The Obama-Biden Justice Department, to spy on those
    Americans, what did they do? They lied to the FISA Court 17
    times. They used the now-famous dossier, the dossier that Jim
    Comey--not Jim Jordan--Jim Comey said was salacious and
    unverified. They didn't tell the Court the guy who wrote it was
    ``desperate to stop Trump.'' They didn't tell the Court the guy
    who wrote it was being paid by the Clinton Campaign to put it
    together. They used that to get a warrant to spy on one our
    fellow citizens, and you guys think that is no big deal.
        Bill Barr understands that is a big deal, and that is why
    John Durham is doing his investigation. Of course, do you know
    who else thought it was a big deal? The inspector general of
    the Justice Department, Michael Horowitz, who wrote a 400-page
    report talking about those 17 lies, talking about all the
    abuses that took place in the Comey-Biden-Obama Justice
    Department. But guess what? This committee, the Judiciary
    Committee, didn't even get a chance to ask questions of Mr.
    Horowitz about that report because Chair won't bring him in to
    testify.
        I don't know if I have ever seen anything like that. A 400-
    page report written by the inspector of the Justice Department,
    scathing report about the FISA Court, and the Chair of the
    Judiciary Committee, with the storied history this Committee
    has in protecting people's liberties, won't even let him come
    in and testify. Well, here is what U.S. District Judge and FISA
    Presiding Judge Rosemary Collier said about the findings in Mr.
    Horowitz's report: ``the frequency with which representations
    made by FBI personnel turned out to be unsupported.'' Think
    about that. Representations made by FBI personnel turned out to
    be unsupported. Do you know what that is? That is a nice way of
    saying they lied, ``or contradicted by information in their
    possession and with which they withheld information detrimental
    to their case.'' ``Withheld information detrimental to their
    case'' is another way of saying they lied. ``Calls into
    question whether information contained in other FBI
    applications is reliable.''
        You put that all in simple English, what Judge Collier was
    saying is you guys lied to us so many darn times, how are we
    supposed to believe anything you bring in front of the Court?
    That was all in that 400-page report from the inspector
    general, but Chair Nadler won't even let Inspector General
    Horowitz come in and answer our questions and go into detail
    about that report. Yet today, the day we get the ruling from
    the Court of Appeals, Chair says it is the Trump DOJ, it is the
    Barr DOJ that is political.
        Guess what else happened in the final days of the Obama
    Administration? Guess what else happened? Thirty-eight
    different people unmasked Michael Flynn's name 49 times. Forty-
    nine times. Clapper, Comey, Brennan, Biden unmasked Michael
    Flynn. Six people at the Treasury Department. Holy cow,
    everyone. This is between Election Day and Inauguration Day,
    and Bill Barr just simply wants to get to the bottom of all
    this, and somehow that is political when, in fact, the politics
    was in the previous Administration, and he is trying to stop
    it.
        Here is what these people said. Here is how we know this
    was all a joke. Clapper: ``I never saw any direct evidence that
    the Trump Campaign or someone was conspiring with the
    Russians.'' Jim Clapper said that, and yet we had a 2-year
    investigation by the Mueller team. Susan Rice: ``I don't recall
    intelligence that I would consider evidence.'' Ben Rhodes said
    the same. Sally Yates: ``I don't believe anybody had reached a
    conclusion yet as to whether Russians were conspiring.'' They
    had nothing, yet they go through this entire investigation.
    Samantha Power, same thing.
        All these key people who were unmasking Michael Flynn's
    name all knew there was no predicate for the investigation, and
    it happened, and somehow the Barr Justice Department is
    political? Like I said, they are not political, they are just
    right, and we saw that with the decision today.
        Finally, let me just say this. I have been saying this for
    I don't know how long, but it is the truth. I have never seen
    an agency where this happened. The top people, the very people
    Bill Barr, and that same testimony he gave where he talked
    about spying, he also said this. He said there was a failure of
    leadership at the upper echelon of the FBI in the previous
    Administration. That may be the understatement of the year. Jim
    Comey fired, leaked memos. Leaked memos to get the Special
    Counsel to put our country through what we went through the
    past few years. Andy McCabe, deputy director, fired, referred
    by that same IG for prosecution. Jim Baker, FBI counsel,
    investigated by the U.S. Attorney in Connecticut, took
    information from the DNC lawyer. Of course, now-famous Peter
    Strzok and Lisa Page, the individuals who ran the Clinton
    investigation, the midyear exam, ran Crossfire Hurricane,
    Crossfire Razor, the Trump-Russia investigations. They were
    both kicked off Mueller's team. Peter Strzok was fired. We all
    know the bias they had against President Trump. We saw it in
    hundreds of text messages that we are all now too familiar
    with.
        The politics was in the previous Administration. Bill Barr
    is doing the Lord's work trying to clean it up so that it
    doesn't happen again. We have said this before, and I will say
    in closing, Emmet Flood's statement a little over a year ago
    where he said this: We would all do well to remember, if they
    can do it to a President, they can lie to a FISA Court to get a
    warrant to go after a President, to go after a major party's
    political campaign, if they can do it to a President, imagine
    what they can do to you or I. Imagine what they can do to the
    folks we get the privilege of representing back home. That is
    why this is important. That is why the work Bill Barr is doing
    is important. You guys can continue to play your political
    games. Bill Barr is going to get to the truth. I yield back.
        Mr. Chabot. Mr. Chair, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
        Chair Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Jordan. Without objection, all
    other opening statements will be included in the record.
        Without objection, three letters from Bradley Weinsheimer,
    the Associate Deputy Attorney General, will be admitted into
    the record.
        [The information follows:]

                          CHAIR NADLER FOR THE RECORD

    =======================================================================

    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chair Nadler. I will now introduce to the--
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Mr. Chair, parliamentary inquiry.
        Mr. Chabot. Point of order.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman will State his parliamentary
    inquiry.
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. What provision of the Democrats'
    new House Rules allows for a duly-subpoenaed witness to appear
    and provide testimony by video?
        Chair Nadler. The Rules so provide. I will now introduce
    today's--
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Mr. Chair? Mr. Chair, the copy of
    the subpoena that we have that was issued to Mr. Aaron
    Zelinsky--
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman--
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. --does not allow for that.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman has not stated a--
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The Chair has not answered the
    inquiry.
        Chair Nadler. Section 4(f)(1)--
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I appeal the ruling.
        Chair Nadler. --allows committees to issue subpoenas--
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I appeal the ruling of the Chair.
    The witnesses are not allowed to attend by video under the
    subpoena that Chair issued.
        Chair Nadler. Section 4(f)(1) of the Rules of the House
    allows--
        Voice. House Resolution 965.
        Chair Nadler. House Resolution 965 allows committees to
    issue subpoenas for return by remote participation.
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The subpoena reads, ``You are
    commanded to be and appear before the''--
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman will suspend. I will now
    introduce today's witnesses.
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I appeal the ruling of Chair, Mr.
    Chair.
        Chair Nadler. I will now introduce today's witnesses.
    Donald Ayer served as the Deputy Attorney General under
    President George H.W. Bush. He joined the Department--
        Mr. Collins. Mr. Chair, you cannot simply go over a point
    of order when an individual appeals the ruling of the Chair,
    and I am speaking to you, you gavel me down, but this is--
        Mr. Gohmert. Rules don't matter in here apparently.
        Mr. Collins. --18 months. He has appealed the ruling of the
    Chair. At least honor the parliamentary procedure.
        Chair Nadler. There was a ruling. It was not--
        Mr. Collins. Point of order. I challenge the subpoena being
    issued that he can appear remotely. I make a point of order.
        Mr. Cicilline. The Chair--
        Chair Nadler. It is not a cognizable point of order.
        Mr. Collins. I challenge the ruling of the Chair.
        Chair Nadler. You cannot appeal a non--
        Mr. Collins. You just denied my point of order. I challenge
    the ruling of the Chair.
        Chair Nadler. Donald Ayer served as Deputy Attorney General
    in the--
        Mr. Collins. Here we go again. I appealed the ruling of the
    Chair on a point of order. You cannot overlook that.
        Mr. Cicilline. Mr. Collins, you can't interrupt these
    proceedings, and the American people deserve to know the truth.
        Chair Nadler. There was no--
        Mr. Collins. This has nothing to do with the truth. This
    has to do with the ruling of the committee.
        Chair Nadler. There was no ruling of the Chair--
        Mr. Collins. I made a point of order. You ruled. That is a
    ruling.
        Chair Nadler. The point was not cognizable.
        Mr. Collins. Then I appeal the ruling of the Chair on not
    recognizing the point of order.
        Chair Nadler. There is not ruling of the Chair to appeal.
    Donald Ayer served as deputy--
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Mr. Chair, could I--
        Mr. Collins. Nothing changes around here.
        Chair Nadler. Donald Ayer--
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Mr. Chair, could I just--
        Chair Nadler. --served as Deputy Attorney General under
    President George H.W. Bush. He joined the Department as an
    assistant U.S. attorney and held a number of other positions,
    including U.S. States Attorney in the Eastern District of
    California, and principal deputy solicitor general under
    President Reagan. Previously, Mr. Ayer clerked for Justice
    William Rehnquist and Judge Malcolm Wilkey of the D.C. Circuit.
    After his career in public service, he was in private practice
    and has also taught extensively at law schools around the
    country. Mr. Ayer received his B.A. from Stanford University
    and his M.A. and J.D. from Harvard University.
        Aaron Zelinsky is an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the
    District of Maryland. Previously, Mr. Zelinsky served as a
    special Assistant United States Attorney in the District of
    Columbia, as an Assistant Special Counsel in Special Counsel
    Robert Mueller's Office, and a Special Assistant to the legal
    advisor in the State Department. Previously, Mr. Zelinsky
    clerked for Justice Kennedy before his retirement from the
    Supreme Court, and for Justice John Paul Stevens after his
    retirement, and as well as for Judge Thomas Griffith on the
    D.C. Circuit. Mr. Zelinsky received his J.D. and B.A. from Yale
    University. I note for the record that pursuant to section
    4(c)(6) of House Resolution 965, Mr. Zelinsky's personal
    counsel is participating in this hearing on the WebEx software
    platform.
        John Elias is a trial attorney in the Antitrust Division of
    the Department of Justice. Since joining the Department in
    2006, he has served in a variety of roles, including acting
    Chief of Staff of the Antitrust Division. In 2015, following a
    detail to the White House's Presidential Personnel Office, he
    joined the Office of the Associate Attorney General, where he
    served in various periods as Counsel, Chief of Staff, and
    Deputy Associate Attorney General. Mr. Elias received his J.D.
    from Stanford Law School and his B.A. from Yale University.
        The Honorable Michael Mukasey served as the United States
    Attorney General from November 2007 to January 2009 under
    President George W. Bush. Prior to his service as Attorney
    General, he served as a judge in the Southern District of New
    York, becoming chief judge in 2000. Previously, he served as an
    Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
    He is currently in private practice. Judge Mukasey received his
    law degree from Yale University and his B.A. from Columbia
    College.
        We welcome all our distinguished witnesses, and we thank
    them for their participation. Now, if you would please rise, I
    will begin by swearing you in.
        Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the
    testimony you are about to give is true and correct to the best
    of your knowledge, information, and belief, so help you God?
        [A chorus of ayes.]
        Chair Nadler. Let the record show the witnesses answered in
    the affirmative. Thank you, and please be seated. Let me extend
    a special welcome to Judge Mukasey, who I well remember from
    my--
        Mr. Collins. Mr. Chair, could we get a vocal from Mr.
    Zelinsky? All we could see was his hand up.
        Chair Nadler. --well remember from our dinners--
        Mr. Collins. I guess not.
        Chair Nadler. Please note that each of your written
    statements will be entered into the record in its entirety.
    Accordingly, I ask that you summarize your testimony in 5
    minutes. To help you stay within that time, for those witnesses
    testifying in person, there is a timing light on your table.
    When the light switches from green to yellow, you have 1 minute
    to conclude your testimony. When the light turns red, it
    signals your 5 minutes have expired. For Mr. Zelinsky, there is
    a timer on your screen to help you keep track of time.
        Mr. Ayer, you may begin. Your mike.

                        TESTIMONY OF DONALD AYER

        Mr. Ayer. Good afternoon, Chair Nadler, Ranking Member
    Jordan, and Members of the committee. Thank you very much for
    inviting me to appear today.
        I was privileged to serve in the Department of Justice
    under two Republican and one Democratic President, and I am
    here because I believe that William Barr poses the greatest
    threat in my lifetime to our rule of law and to public trust in
    it. That is because he does not believe in its core principle,
    that no person is above the law. Instead, since taking office,
    he has worked to advance his lifelong conviction that the
    President should hold virtually autocratic powers. That
    includes immunity from nearly all checks and balances and being
    able to accord special treatment to himself and his friends.
        The system that Barr is working to tear down was put in
    place in the aftermath of the Watergate scandals, which
    involved extensive government corruption and caused a
    widespread loss of trust. After Nixon resigned, President
    Ford's Attorney General, Edward Levi, acted swiftly to restore
    trust by supporting reforms to prevent such abuses. These
    included statutes, like FISA, the first Inspector General Act,
    expansion of FOIA, and the Whistleblower Protection Act.
        Levi knew that public trust ultimately depended on people
    believing that ours is a government of laws and not men, in
    which no person is above the law. That had special significance
    for the Department of Justice whose work he saw imbued with a
    judicial nature. Its awesome powers demanded transparent and
    orderly decision-making processes subject to review at multiple
    levels and free from improper personal considerations or
    political interference. Levi emphasized the critical role of a
    dedicated professional staff who would bring zeal and
    determination and a great concern for fairness and
    impartiality. This vision has been an inspiration to
    generations of Department lawyers.
        Bill Barr's service since last February has been a root and
    branch attack on Edward Levi's vision and reforms; indeed, on
    the very idea that no person is above the law. Barr has sought
    to give the President nearly unlimited powers by negating or
    overriding many independent processes that operate as important
    checks on executive branch action. Here are some of the things
    that he has done.
        He has worked to defeat any meaningful oversight, either by
    Congress or by review in the courts, through litigation, legal
    opinions, and his own speeches. He has himself refused multiple
    times to show up in response to requests to appear before
    Congress. He has worked to undermine Congress' appropriation
    power by litigating the President's right to divert funds to
    pay for his border wall, which Congress refused repeatedly to
    fund. He has regularly undermined the authority of independent
    decision-making processes and career professionals, whose
    disinterested integrity Levi saw as a key element justifying
    public trust. He has done this by his own statements, such as
    last March when he publicly whitewashed the Mueller Report's
    extensive findings on obstruction of justice, and last December
    when he publicly contradicted key conclusions reached by
    Inspector General Horowitz and his FBI election interference
    probe. Both times, Barr's intervention vocally reaffirmed
    positions advanced regularly in presidential tweets.
        He has also done it by enlisting various political cronies
    to review and reverse decisions of experienced career
    attorneys, or by simply replacing them in handling matters of
    personal interest to the President. This is how he accomplished
    the reversals of long-held Department positions in the cases of
    Trump associates Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, urging a much
    lighter sentence in one case and outright dismissal in the
    other.
        In a number of other matters, such as the intake of
    information from Rudy Giuliani and investigation of unmasking
    requests during the Obama Administration, Barr has set aside
    certain subject matter to be handled by people in his political
    inner circle rather than by career officials who would deal
    with them in ordinary course. Finally, Barr has willingly
    supported removal of officials when their attention to duty
    proves politically inconvenient to the President. The treatment
    of U.S. Attorneys Jessie Liu here in the District of Columbia
    and of Geoffrey Berman in New York last Friday are two blatant
    examples. So is his standing by and voicing support as Trump,
    during April and May of this year, has removed five inspectors
    general who had long served as an important check on executive
    branch corruption.
        To an ever-greater and quite shocking extent, this spring
    Barr has used the great powers of the Department of Justice to
    advance the President's narrow political interests and gravely
    undermined constitutional rights and the functioning of our
    democracy. Consider his apparent role in overseeing law
    enforcement action on June 1 to deny the right of peaceful
    protests in Lafayette Park, or the plainly frivolous motion
    filed last Friday, and denied one day later, to enjoin
    publication of John Bolton's book for disclosing facts
    embarrassing to the President, or worst of all, I think, are
    his flamboyant media discussions of the facts supposedly
    unearthed by the specially-commissioned investigation he is
    personally conducting with the help of U.S. Attorney John
    Durham. Repeatedly, Barr has echoed the President's tweets and
    conclusively characterized the FBI investigation of Russian
    interference as an effort to spy on the Trump Campaign, and, as
    he put it, ``one of the greatest travesties in American
    history,'' and he has hinted repeatedly that indictments are
    likely.
        This conduct is a textbook violation of Justice Manual Rule
    1-7.400, which bars public comment on criminal investigations
    before charges are filed. Here, though, the wrong is much worse
    as Barr is using a criminal investigation to produce fodder for
    the President's campaign propaganda mill, which can have its
    effect even though it is false. If this conduct, in particular,
    gives cause for great concern about what Barr may do next--just
    another 30 seconds.
        In closing, it needs to be said that Bill Barr does
    regularly lie in ways that impact official action. Along with
    his continuing media project to make Americans believe that the
    FBI conspired against Donald Trump, his statements about the
    Mueller Report, Geoffrey Berman's supposed resignation, and
    Barr's own role in the events in Lafayette Park come quickly to
    mind. So, does his practice of regularly shrouding himself in
    the rhetoric and trappings of the rule of law, even as he
    desecrates and undermines the institutions that make it
    possible? To me, Barr's crowning dishonesty--
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The gentleman's time has expired.
        Mr. Ayer. --is the portrait of Edward Levi that a recent
    New York Times article showed hanging on the wall of his
    conference room as though the current incumbent--
        Chair Nadler. Regular order. The witness will conclude.
        Mr. Gohmert. We are way beyond regular order.
        Chair Nadler. The witness will continue.
        Mr. Ayer. Can I have one more sentence?
        Chair Nadler. By all means.
        Mr. Ayer. Okay. To me, Barr's crowning dishonesty is the
    portrait of Edward Levi that a recent--
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Mr. Chair, I would ask that the
    Sergeant-At-Arms--
        Chair Nadler. The witness will conclude.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. --be called upon to stop the
    disruption of this meeting. I can't hear this witness. This is
    a very important witness.
        Mr. Gohmert. Yeah. Well, he is way beyond--
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. The Chair has the--
        Mr. Gohmert. If there are no rules about when people can
    talk--
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. The Chair has the authority--
        Mr. Gohmert. There are no rules about when you can make
    noise.
        Chair Nadler. That is a good point, and the Chair will
    enforce the 5-minute rule. The witness will proceed.
        Mr. Chabot. The Chair is not enforcing the 5-minute rule.
        Chair Nadler. The witness will conclude.
        Mr. Gohmert. Mr. Chair, this is outrageous. Do you have no
    respect for the rules whatsoever?
        Chair Nadler. The witness will conclude.
        Mr. Gohmert. He is 2 minutes beyond concluding, and you
    don't let us have that kind of time. You gavel down
    immediately. You are being grossly unfair.
        Chair Nadler. The witness will conclude.
        Mr. Gohmert. This man had a written statement, and he knew
    to cut it to 5 minutes. He couldn't do it. Either we have
    rules, or we don't.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman will suspend. The witness will
    conclude.
        Mr. Ayer. Thank you.
        Mr. Gohmert. Then we can keep making noise.
        Mr. Ayer. In closing, it needs to be said that Bill Barr
    does regularly lie in ways that impact official actions.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chair, there is not order in the room.
    There is a banging, and it is disrespectful.
        Mr. Gohmert. No, there is certainly not.
        Mr. Cohen. Mr. Chair, will you have Jean Cooper removed?
        Chair Nadler. The witness will conclude.
        Mr. Gohmert. That is what you said a while ago, and he
    didn't conclude.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman will suspend. The witness will
    conclude.
        Mr. Ayer. So, I guess the last thing I want to sum up with.
    I have said all the rest of this, but the last point I would
    like to make is that I think his crowning dishonesty in the
    face of what he is doing to the Justice Department is the
    picture that I saw in the New York Times a few weeks ago, a
    portrait of Edward Levi on the wall of his conference room as
    though the current incumbent has anything but disdain for the
    beliefs and achievements of his predecessor. Thank you, Your
    Honor.
        [The statement of Mr. Ayer follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chair Nadler. Thank you.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Mr. Chair, I have a parliamentary
    inquiry.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman will State his parliamentary
    inquiry.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Is it not appropriating for the
    Chair to exercise discretion in extending the 5-minute Rule as
    the Chair sees fit?
        Chair Nadler. It certainly is appropriate.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Is it authorized under the rules of
    this committee?
        Chair Nadler. It certainly is authorized under the rules of
    this committee.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Well, then can not the Chair call
    in the Sergeant-at-Arms to maintain order when a member of this
    panel is out of order and disrupts the meeting?
        Chair Nadler. We will move on to the next witness.
        Mr. Collins. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chair.
        Chair Nadler. Mr. Elias.
        Mr. Collins. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chair.
        Chair Nadler. Mr. Elias.
        Mr. Collins. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chair.
        Chair Nadler. Mr. Elias.
        Mr. Collins. Point of order, Mr. Chair.
        Chair Nadler. There is no point of order.
        Mr. Collins. How do you know? I've not said one. Here we go
    again.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman is completely out of order,
    Mr. Chair.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman will State his point of order.
        Mr. Collins. The point of order is, is according to the
    House Rules, a House Chair cannot capriciously determine the 5-
    minute Rule at the whim of what he wants. It has to be fairly
    and impartially applied. That is the according to the House
    Rules, and that is not what has happened.
        Chair Nadler. We are applying the 5-minute Rule as provided
    by the House Rules.
        Mr. Collins. So, you are ruling on my point of order?
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman has not stated a point of
    order.
        Mr. Collins. I did State a point of order. I stated the
    point of order is the rules are being violated by a capricious
    Chair who is not following the Rules of the House by
    arbitrarily deciding when the 5-minute Rule will be applied and
    when it will not be applied.
        Chair Nadler. You have not stated a cognizable point of
    order. The Chair has discretion--
        Mr. Collins. Mr. Chair, you have not stated a recognizable
    way of running the Committee in 18 months. So, I mean, that
    is--
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman will suspend. The gentleman has
    not stated a cognizable point of order. Mr. Elias?
        Mr. Collins. I did earlier, and you blew over it.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman will suspend. Mr. Elias?

                       TESTIMONY OF JOHN W. ELIAS

        Mr. Elias. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Ranking Member
    Jordan, and Members of the committee. My name is John Elias,
    and I am a career attorney with the Department of Justice. I
    joined the Department in 2006, and over the past 14 years, I
    have served under six Attorneys General and three Presidents. I
    have spent my entire legal career at the Department. Although I
    am a current Department attorney, my testimony is personal and
    does not represent the views of the Department.
        Throughout my career in Federal service, I have been taught
    to do the right thing for the right reasons in the right way.
    That is why earlier this year I asked the DOJ inspector general
    to examine whether multiple antitrust investigations launched
    under Attorney General Barr were abuses of authority or other
    misconduct. The first matter that I referred to the IG
    concerned 10 investigations that the Antitrust Division
    launched into merger activity in the marijuana, or cannabis,
    industry. These mergers were not even close to meeting
    established criteria for these kinds of investigations, and yet
    these cannabis investigations accounted for a full 29 percent
    of the Division's full review investigations last fiscal year.
        For context, these kinds of investigations are rare. On
    average, only 1 to 2 percent of the thousands of transactions
    that come before the Division each year get a full review. In
    the first of the cannabis investigations, the merger of MedMen
    and PharmaCann, career attorneys examined the proposed deal and
    determined that the transaction called for no further antitrust
    review. Staff reached this conclusion using the criteria under
    the horizontal merger guidelines that have guided the Division
    for decades. However, on March 5th, 2019, Attorney General Barr
    called the Antitrust Division leadership to his office and
    ordered the Division to proceed with a full investigation. The
    Division staff complied, issuing burdensome 15-page subpoenas
    that compelled production of 1.3 million documents from 40
    personnel, all at great expense to the companies. Although the
    Division ultimately found no evidence of antitrust problems,
    the companies abandoned the merger, citing delays in regulatory
    approval.
        The Antitrust Division went on to conduct similar
    investigations of nine other mergers in the cannabis industry.
    Division staff continued to document at the outset the lack of
    any bona fide antitrust issues. In some cases, the companies
    operated in completely different geographies and did not
    compete at all. Nonetheless, the Division continued to issue
    subpoenas and compel productions of millions of documents from
    these businesses. At one point, the office handling agriculture
    became so overwhelmed with cannabis investigations that it had
    to pull in attorneys from the Telecommunications, Media, and
    Technology offices. In response to staff concerns about these
    investigations, the head of the Antitrust Division, Assistant
    Attorney General Delrahim acknowledged at an all-staff meeting
    that the cannabis industry is ``unpopular on the fifth floor,''
    referring to AG Barr's offices at DOJ headquarters. Personal
    dislike of an industry is not a valid basis upon which to
    ground an antitrust investigation.
        The next investigation that I reported to the IG concerns
    an arrangement announced in July 2019 between California and
    four automakers to limit fuel emissions. After news reports
    indicating that the President was enraged by the arrangement
    and wanted to retaliate, President Trump criticized the deal on
    Twitter. The day after the tweets, Antitrust Division political
    leadership instructed staff to initiate an investigation that
    very day. Ordinarily, decisions of import--here an
    investigation of a $630-billion automobile market--would take
    time and care to evaluate, especially when the action would
    face defenses. In the hurried investigation paperwork, staff
    acknowledged that it had only partially examined public
    information.
        Members of the committee, I have undertaken whistleblower
    activity, and I'm here today because I recognize the imperative
    for law enforcers to operate even handedly and in good faith. I
    reported these matters to the IG because they were evidence
    that our Nation's antitrust laws were being misused. These laws
    have protected American markets and consumers for more than a
    century. The hundreds of career staff at the Antitrust Division
    take this mission seriously and expect DOJ's political
    leadership to as well.
        I thank you for examining these issues and will be happy to
    answer your questions.
        [The statement of Mr. Elias follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chair Nadler. Thank you. Attorney General Mukasey?

               TESTIMONY OF HONORABLE MICHAEL B. MUKASEY

        Mr. Mukasey. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Nadler,
    Ranking Member Jordan, and Members of this committee. Thank you
    for inviting me to testify at this hearing. The topic of
    today's hearing--claims of politicization of the Justice
    Department--is serious and important because the fundamental
    duty of the Department is to pursue equal justice under the
    law, and we can and should expect no less. As you may know, I
    was privileged to lead the men and women of the Justice
    Department during the George W. Bush Administration. Before
    that, I served for over 19 years as a district judge in the
    Southern District of New York, and that is the perspective that
    I bring to the testimony today.
        The Department needs capable, experienced, and even-handed
    leadership. Its components and programs have reach across the
    country and across the world. It handles matters as diverse as
    antitrust and anti-terrorism. It takes an experienced lawyer
    and leader to manage such a department effectively, and I
    believe without reservation that William Barr is that kind of a
    leader, and that this country is fortunate that he leads one of
    the most important government departments. I do not have
    firsthand involvement in the particular matters to be discussed
    today, but based on my own experience, I can assure you that
    those are not issues of first impression for the Department or
    for the Federal courts.
        The Justice Department is not politicized because senior
    officials disagreed with the sentencing recommendation for Mr.
    Stone. Trial lawyers in the Department are zealous advocates--
    that is their job--but zeal does not confer perfection or
    assure justice. My views on this case are no secret. I set them
    out on a piece written with Attorney General Meese in the Wall
    Street Journal where we pointed out that the sentencing
    guidelines which were adopted in 1987, initially as
    presumptively binding on the courts, have been strictly
    advisory since 2005 under Supreme Court law. Both as a judge
    and as Attorney General, I have declined to follow sentencing
    recommendations from trial lawyers.
        As Attorney General Meese and I wrote, ``Prosecutors are
    supposed to seek Justice, not to play the sentencing guidelines
    like some sort of pinball machine to see how many times they
    can ring the bell, or to try to pressure a judge to impose a
    harsh sentence, and also thereby cast doubt on the competence
    of the government by reading guidelines in a didactic and
    hyper-technical way without applying the one element that must
    be present when you read any law, whether statute or
    guidelines, and that is common sense.'' In a highly-publicized
    and politically fraught case, it was not only proper, but also
    advisable, for the Attorney General to assure that the
    government sentencing recommendations not promote that unworthy
    end.
        The decision to lower the recommendation was reached by
    others in the Department as well, including career lawyers, one
    of whom signed the lower recommendation. Attorney General Barr
    said publicly that he believed Mr. Stone's prosecution was
    warranted and that, with his conviction, that a jail sentence
    was warranted, and that the jail sentence imposed by the judge
    was appropriate. I believe the trial judge agreed that the
    original sentencing recommendation was overly harsh as her
    sentence reflects.
        The Justice Department is not politicized because
    prosecutors dropped charges against General Flynn. In fact, as
    you heard this morning, the D.C. Circuit issued a writ of
    mandamus directing that the prosecution stop. As I understand
    it, the former FBI director talked publicly about having sent
    agents to interview General Flynn without following applicable
    protocols. Not using proper protocols wasn't simply a delicate
    problem of etiquette, like using the fish fork instead of the
    salad fork. It followed the deputy director's assurance to
    General Flynn that he need not have a lawyer present. The
    agents based their investigation on a potential violation of a
    law, the Logan Act, that has never been prosecuted successfully
    since its adoption in the 18th century, that is probably
    unconstitutional, and that no rational person would apply to a
    potential national security advisor in any event. This morning,
    we saw documents showing that that theory was discussed on
    January 4, 2017, at a meeting in the Oval Office, which is to
    say the interview was a pretext for getting General Flynn, as
    one senior FBI official put it, to either lie or admit to
    something that could have him fired.
        The duty of the Department is to do justice, and that does
    not end after a guilty plea, particularly when that plea is
    procured with the threat to prosecute the defendant's son, and
    that is concealed from the Court and the probation department
    so that it would not have to be disclosed to future defendants
    against whom General Flynn might testify. That is a
    particularly gag-inducing feature of this episode, to me as a
    former district judge, that that was being kept from the Court.
    It is not unheard of for a prosecution to be dropped even after
    a guilty plea following the disclosure of new information that
    shows continued prosecution would be a miscarriage of justice.
        There seems to be a tendency these days to read ulterior
    motives into every action of Attorney General Barr. As Attorney
    General Meese and I noted in our article, it is helpful to
    consider a few data points from Attorney General Barr's tenure.
    First, despite his own skepticism about aspects of Special
    Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, he allowed that
    investigation to run its course. Second, he supported the
    decision not to prosecute Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew
    McCabe, a frequent critic of the President, despite evidence
    that not only did McCabe lie when he denied leaking
    information, but that he also berated others for the leaks to
    deflect suspicion from himself. He also--
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Mr. Chair, point of order. We are
    again being disturbed by tapping as the Chair exercises his
    discretion in letting the witness testify beyond the 5-minute
    rule, and I would like for that tapping to stop. If it doesn't,
    I would like for the order.
        Mr. Gohmert. You want somebody removed because they want
    the rules enforced?
        That is amazing.
        Chair Nadler. Gentleman--
        Mr. Cicilline. Mr. Gohmert, you are not presiding over this
    hearing. Mr. Nadler is.
        Chair Nadler. The Members will--
        Mr. Gohmert. Some of us would like the rules--
        Chair Nadler. The Members will show courtesy to the
    witnesses, Mr. Gohmert. The witness may proceed.
        Mr. Mukasey. Thank you. So far, as the claim that William
    Barr's service is somehow a desecration of Edward Levi's
    service, I should point out that Edward Levi's portrait hangs
    where it hung when I was Attorney General, and that Edward
    Levi's grandson serves proudly as Attorney General Barr's Chief
    of Staff, so that attack is totally unjustified.
        Now, I have come to know Attorney General Barr over the
    years. I have had many discussions with him about the law and
    about public policy issues, and, based on that, I have no doubt
    that the welfare of this country, upheld through the even-
    handed application of law to achieve justice, is what motivates
    him and motivates his decisions, and that is all that motivates
    his decisions. I think we are fortunate to have a person of his
    temperament, talents, and convictions in office during this
    difficult time in history. I thank you very much, and thank you
    for your indulgence, Mr. Chair.
        [The statement of Mr. Mukasey follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chair Nadler. Thank you. We will now proceed under the 5-
    minute Rule with questions. Before I recognize myself, Oh, I am
    sorry. We have Mr. Zelinsky on video, and I didn't know that.
    Mr. Zelinsky will now testify.

                    TESTIMONY OF AARON S.J. ZELINSKY

        Mr. Zelinsky. Good afternoon, Chair Nadler, Ranking Member
    Jordan, and Members of the committee. In response to your
    subpoena, I am here today to testify about United States v.
    Roger Stone. I apologize for not appearing before you in
    person, and I thank the Committee for allowing me to appear
    remotely today. For family reasons, I should not risk
    infection.
        As Chair mentioned, I'm privileged to serve as an Assistant
    United States Attorney, a non-partisan career prosecutor. Our
    job is to see that justice is done in every case without fear
    or favor, without party or politics. It's unusual for a
    prosecutor like myself to testify about a criminal case, and,
    as outlined further in my written remarks, there may be reasons
    why my testimony will, therefore, be limited in some respects.
    The Department of Justice has cleared me today to discuss
    matters related to the Roger Stone sentencing. Let me now turn
    to the Stone case.
        The first thing that every AUSA learns is that we treat
    every defendant equally and fairly. In the United States of
    America, we do not prosecute people based on politics, and we
    don't cut them a break based on politics either. That wasn't
    what happened here. Roger Stone was treated differently because
    of politics. At the time of these events, February of 2020, I
    was a career Assistant United States Attorney, as I am proud to
    be now. I was not privy to discussions with political
    leadership at the Department of Justice. Everything that
    happened is based on two things: What I saw and what I heard.
        What I saw was that Roger Stone was being treated
    differently from every other defendant. He received breaks that
    are, in my experience, unheard of, and more so for a defendant
    in his circumstances, a defendant who lied to Congress, who
    remained unrepentant, and who made threats against a judge and
    a witness in his case. What I heard repeatedly was that this
    leniency was happening because of Stone's relationship to the
    President, that the Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of
    Columbia was receiving heavy pressure from the highest levels
    of the Department of Justice, and that his instructions to us
    were based on political considerations. I was told that the
    Acting U.S. Attorney was giving Stone a break because he was
    afraid of the President of the United States.
        I believe that was wrong, and, together with my fellow line
    prosecutors, I immediately and repeatedly said so.
    Unfortunately, our objections were not heeded. First, we were
    pressured to reduce the initial sentencing guidelines
    calculation for Mr. Stone without any clear legal rationale for
    doing so. When we refused to go along, we were instructed
    instead to disregard the guidelines entirely and to recommend
    an unspecified lower sentence for Mr. Stone. I was told that,
    to the best of anyone's recollection, such a recommendation has
    never been made by the Fraud and Public Corruption Section of
    the United States Attorney's Office. When we again refused, we
    were told that we could be fired if we didn't go along.
        I notified the office that I intended to withdraw from the
    case rather than file a memo that was the result of wrongful
    political pressure. While all this was happening, I was
    repeatedly told the Department's actions were not based on the
    law or the facts, but rather on political considerations, Mr.
    Stone's political relationships, and that the acting U.S.
    Attorney was afraid of the President. Shortly after I informed
    the office of my intent to withdraw, office leadership changed
    its position and allowed us to file a sentencing memorandum
    properly calculating the guidelines and seeking a guideline
    sentence. We filed the memo and heard nothing that evening.
        At 2:48 a.m. that morning, the President tweeted that the
    sentencing memo was horrible and very unfair and ``cannot allow
    this miscarriage of justice.'' Later that day, we learned the
    Department was going to issue a new sentencing memorandum
    mischaracter-izing the application of the sentencing guidelines
    and asking for an open-ended downward departure for Mr. Stone.
    We were not allowed to see the new proposed memo. We weren't
    even told who was writing it. At this point, I made the
    difficult choice to resign from the case and my assignment in
    the U.S. Attorney's Office in DC. I resigned because following
    orders would have violated the oath I swore when I took my job.
        To be clear, my concern is not with the sentence Mr. Stone
    received. I'm not here to criticize the judge's sentence or her
    reasoning. My concern is about process. The Department of
    Justice treated Roger Stone differently from everyone else, and
    I was told that the Department cut Roger Stone a break because
    of his relationship to the President.
        I take no satisfaction in publicly criticizing the actions
    of the Department of Justice where I have spent most of my
    legal career. I have always been and I remain proud to be an
    Assistant United States Attorney. It pains me to describe these
    events, but, as Judge Jackson said in this case, truth still
    matters, and so I'm here today to tell you the truth. I would
    be pleased to answer your questions.
        [The statement of Mr. Zelinsky follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chair Nadler. Thank you very much. We will now proceed
    under the 5-minute Rule with questions. Before I recognize
    myself for questioning, without objection, correspondence
    between our witnesses, Mr. Elias and Mr. Zelinsky, and the
    Department of Justice, in advance of their testimony today will
    be entered into the record. These letters establish the
    parameters in which they are allowed to testify.
        [The information follows:]

                          CHAIR NADLER FOR THE RECORD

    =======================================================================

    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chair Nadler. I will now recognize myself for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Zelinsky, you recommended a sentence of 7 to 9 years in
    prison for Roger Stone's felony crimes. Was your recommendation
    based on Department guidelines?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Yes, it was.
        Chair Nadler. Based on your 14 years at the Department, did
    you believe that recommendation was warranted?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I want to correct you, Chair. I have been at
    the Department for just about, it will be 6 years this
    November, but based on my experience, I did believe that the
    recommendation was warranted, yes.
        Chair Nadler. Leadership at the Department wanted a lower
    sentence. When you asked the Department why they wanted a
    below-guideline sentence for Mr. Stone, you were told it was
    ``political and because the U.S. Attorney was afraid of the
    President.'' Is that correct?
        Mr. Zelinsky. That is correct.
        Chair Nadler. What did you understand that to mean?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I understood it, as described in my written
    statement, to mean that political considerations were weighing
    in the U.S. Attorney's decision, and that the concern about the
    President was driving his decision-making process.
        Chair Nadler. What were you told could happen to you if you
    refused to go along with this lower recommendation?
        Mr. Zelinsky. We were told that we could be fired.
        Chair Nadler. Now, you have described clearly that the
    Department treated Roger Stone differently than any other
    defendant because of his relationship to President Trump. Is
    this against Department policy?
        Mr. Zelinsky. It is.
        Chair Nadler. Is it wrong?
        Mr. Zelinsky. It is.
        Chair Nadler. Is it unethical?
        Mr. Zelinsky. It is.
        Chair Nadler. You wrote in your written testimony that it
    pains you to describe these events. Can you explain why it
    pains you?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Mr. Chair, I took an oath when I took this
    job, as did all my colleagues who are assistant U.S. attorneys
    across the country. We are immensely proud of what we do, but
    we are proud to serve in the Department of Justice, and we are
    proud that we prosecute without fear or favor. To describe an
    abdication of responsibility like this and this sort of
    contradiction of all the reasons that we have taken these jobs
    is deeply painful to me.
        Chair Nadler. Thank you. Mr. Elias, we just heard from Mr.
    Zelinsky how the Department violated its own policies just to
    appease the President's whims. In your testimony, you described
    a similar pattern. Am I correct that the Department also
    pursued antitrust investigations against the advice of career
    attorneys to satisfy the political and personal whims of
    President Trump and senior leadership at DOJ?
        Mr. Elias. Yes, you are correct.
        Chair Nadler. Do you believe these investigations are in
    the best interests of the American people?
        Mr. Elias. I do not, no.
        Chair Nadler. In your opinion, should the Department have
    prioritized investigations that benefited the American people
    instead of pursuing the Attorney General and President's
    political vendettas?
        Mr. Elias. I think the Department should be using its
    resources in a way that fulfills its mission, yes.
        Chair Nadler. Mr. Ayer, I would like to turn to you. You
    have decades of experience in public service at the highest
    levels of the Department of Justice. These witnesses confirmed
    that the Attorney General is weaponizing government resources
    and taxpayer dollars to pursue investigations that do not in
    any way benefit Americans, but instead advance the President's
    personal and political agenda. Briefly, what is the impact on
    our justice system if Barr is allowed to get away with this?
        Mr. Ayer. Well, let me just correct one thing. I don't
    really have decades. I have really had a little over 1 decade.
    Nonetheless, to answer your question, I think the problem is
    that there is a finite number of resources to be spent to
    advance a whole lot of areas of our justice system, and so you
    are throwing money away. That is the first thing. The more
    important thing is that by channeling enforcement efforts into
    inappropriate targets for the purpose, in some cases, of
    harassing people, which I think is often what we are dealing
    with, and also for channeling resources and spending time
    trying to give a special deal to other people, you are not only
    wasting money, but you are totally undermining public trust in
    the system. You are creating a situation.
        I think we are on the way to something far worse than
    Watergate where you had a problem of public distrust because it
    is becoming very transparent that many things are being done
    essentially for reasons that are completely unrelated to the
    merits of the case.
        Chair Nadler. Mr. Zelinsky, you testified that you came
    forward because telling the truth still matters. I, too,
    believe the truth still matters, and we will not let this
    conduct stand. Attorney General Barr will be held accountable.
    I recognize the gentleman from Ohio.
        Mr. Chabot. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Today's hearing is yet
    another attempt by the majority to smear this President and his
    Administration. My Democratic colleagues were shocked and
    deeply offended that he won the presidency in the first place.
    They are still grieving that they failed to remove him from
    office through their phony impeachment debacle, and now they
    are targeting Administration officials, in this case Attorney
    General Barr, for merely acting within the scope of their
    duties.
        Where was the outrage when the Obama-Biden Justice
    Department investigated journalists, or when they retaliated
    against whistleblowers, or when they surveilled the Trump
    campaign? It is hypocrisy, and most people are going to see
    right through it.
        It just shows that the majority will stop at nothing in
    attempting to distract and harass this President and his
    Administration. Their efforts are particularly disturbing at a
    time when a global pandemic has negatively impacted us all, and
    the country has been rocked by racial strife and civil unrest.
    There are other more important things we ought to be focusing
    our time and attention on rather than this distraction.
        Despite an exemplary record and career, Democrats are now
    going after Attorney General Barr. Why? Because he is cleaning
    up the mess of the previous Administration and restoring
    integrity and honor to the DOJ and the FBI.
        Now, speaking about messes from the previous
    Administration, Hillary's funding of the Steele dossier and the
    FISA scandal led to the Mueller investigation and the waste of
    a whole lot of our time and taxpayer dollars.
        Now, Mr. Zelinsky, you were part of that Mueller team,
    weren't you?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I was. I was.
        Mr. Chabot. That supposedly unbiased team of 17 attorneys
    consisted of 13 Democrats. That doesn't sound very unbiased to
    me. Does it to you?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I would disagree with the premise of your
    question. We are, as I said, career professionals. Prosecutors
    do our job and we do it regardless of party or politics--
        Mr. Chabot. It was 13 Democrats--
        Mr. Zelinsky. --and we did--
        Mr. Chabot. --13 Democrats out of 17.
        Mr. Zelinsky. There has been public reporting to that
    effect.
        Mr. Chabot. All right. Thank you. Former Deputy Attorney
    General Rod Rosenstein, your boss, I believe, testified before
    the Senate recently that he wished Mueller had chosen a, quote,
    ``more politically diverse group.'' Don't you think he has a
    point?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I don't think it would be appropriate to
    choose any prosecutor based on their politics, and that is not
    what the Special Counsel did in that circumstance. In fact, if
    anything, if the Special Counsel had tried to weigh the
    politics of the prosecutors when he was choosing them, that
    would have been far more deeply problematic than what he did,
    which is hiring professionals to do their job.
        Mr. Chabot. I guess it was just coincidental, 13 out of 17.
        Something else I would like to point out that I think
    clearly shows that there was indeed bias on the Mueller team
    was that as a group they had given $3,000 to Republican
    candidates in the past but over $60,000-$62,000 to be exact--to
    Democrats, a 20-to-1 bias in one direction.
        Mr. Mukasey, let me turn to you if I can at this time. Do
    you believe that the Department of Justice under Attorney
    General Barr has become politicized, as my colleagues on the
    other side are alleging?
        Mr. Mukasey. As I said, I do not.
        Mr. Chabot. Would you agree that Attorney General Barr has
    worked to root out politics, in fact, and bring transparency
    back to the Department?
        Mr. Mukasey. I think he has made every effort to try to run
    the Department the way it should be run and to conduct
    investigations on the merits.
        Mr. Chabot. Do you believe that Attorney General Barr makes
    decisions based upon political calculations or upon the
    relevant facts and law?
        Mr. Mukasey. I believe he makes decisions based on the
    relevant facts and the law, and that if he made decisions based
    on political calculations, he would not have made the decisions
    that I alluded to in the last part of my remarks.
        Mr. Chabot. Absolutely. I completely agree with you.
        I am almost out of time so let me conclude with this. Mr.
    Chair, this hearing is just another sad attempt by you and the
    majority to attack this Administration, specifically the
    Attorney General, unfairly, and it is a shame because there is
    so much other important work that we should be engaged in, to
    unite this nation, not to further tear us apart.
        With that I yield back the balance of my time.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back. The gentlelady
    from California, Ms. Lofgren.
        Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Given the appearance of
    political influence exhibited by this Administration and the
    AG, and based on the testimonies presented to us, I am
    concerned about the integrity of our elections. In February,
    the Attorney General outlined restrictions and policies for
    campaign-related investigations. I would like to make a copy of
    that memo available in the record.
        [The information follows:]

                           MS. LOFGREN FOR THE RECORD

    =======================================================================

    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Ms. Lofgren. Now, in part, the memo requires that no
    investigations should be opened or initiated of a declared
    candidate for President or Vice-President, et cetera, absent
    written approval of the Attorney General. This is a departure
    from previous campaign investigation protocol. Having heard
    from witnesses today about the significant political influence
    affecting the Department of Justice, this, at the very least,
    raises the specter that decisions to investigate presidential
    campaigns could be politically motivated.
        Mr. Ayer, does the appearance of political influence over
    investigations into presidential campaigns raised by this memo
    concern you?
        Mr. Ayer. It does, and it is one of a number of things that
    does. Obviously, the election is upcoming, and it is a hugely
    important phase of our national life. So, the idea that we are
    not going to be handling possible investigations relating to
    the election, we are not going to be handling them in the
    ordinary course by even-handed professionals who are trained to
    do it, but we are going to have them handled in some special
    way, which I don't think we really know quite what it is. We
    know that it is a cadre of people that Mr. Barr has sort of set
    aside and said they will handle this.
        This is only one of a number of areas where he has done
    this, and we know of some. I am afraid there are others we
    don't, where whenever there is something sensitive it
    essentially gets turned over to somebody that he can trust, as
    opposed to someone who is a professional, trained, and even-
    handed in their handling of it.
        Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much. I want to talk about
    concerns that the Attorney General is abusing power in a way
    that is quite real to Californians. As we know, the Supreme
    Court has held that due to their stake in protecting their
    quasi-sovereign interest, States have the authority to set
    regulations governing greenhouses gasses. That is a
    Massachusetts v. EPA case from 2007.
        Now, California has applied for and received more than 100
    Clean Air waivers over the past 50 years. None have been
    revoked. As a result, the average car sold nationwide is more
    than 99 percent cleaner than a car from the 1970s.
        Now, as we know, the Trump Administration has attempted to
    curtail California's action, and following that carmakers in
    California worked together to come up with emissions that would
    work for California.
        This is important. This isn't just arcane stuff. I mean, in
    the Central Valley of California we have the highest asthma
    rate among children in the United States, and a lot of that is
    because of emissions on I-5 and Highway 99.
        So, when I saw this, the antitrust announcement, I thought
    he is just trying to scare these automakers, to let them know
    that they are going to have to spend a lot of money if they
    deal with California as the law permits them to do.
        Mr. Elias, the investigation initiated, was there any
    legitimate antitrust concern, or was it simply an attempt by
    the Administration to muscle the auto companies into not
    dealing with the State of California?
        Mr. Elias. So, as I pointed out, the coincidence in time
    with the opening of the investigation was the day after the
    Trump tweets. I think staff had looked through some public
    resources, public laws, to see whether it might be permissible
    or not, and that kind of thing we do all the time and don't
    proceed to a formal, full investigation. So, to answer your
    question, no, I don't believe there was a proper basis to
    actually go forward with a formal investigation.
        Ms. Lofgren. Well, it looked to me that the Department
    announced these investigations in really a bad-faith manner,
    after the President publicly threatened these companies for
    disagreeing with his own policies. This matters. It matters not
    in an arcane way or in an academic way. It matters to the lungs
    of the children of the State of California. I think it is a
    direct example of how misconduct and political corruption in
    the Department of Justice has a direct adverse impact on the
    people of America, and most specifically in this case, the
    people of California.
        I would just like to know that I, too, was around during
    the Watergate matter, and I see some parallels. Actually, this
    is worse, worse than Watergate, worse than Nixon.
        I see my time is up, Mr. Chair, so I yield back.
        Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back. Mr. Gohmert.
        Mr. Gohmert. This is incredible. Mr. Ayer, you called Jeff
    Jensen, a 20-year career prosecutor, a political crony. By the
    way, do you care to say, into the microphone, what you mouthed
    at me earlier when you had gone over two minutes past your
    time?
        Mr. Ayer. I didn't mouth anything at you, Congressman.
        Mr. Gohmert. Well, you just showed your lack of
    credibility, both with Thornburgh and people that have followed
    has a real basis in fact. In fact, rarely have we had anybody
    with a chip you have on your shoulder come before us.
    Thornburgh said he believed that you were really never around.
    He said, ``Bill Barr was the''--and I am quoting--``the first
    deputy I had, and that came when I was two years into the
    job.''
        Anyway, I understand you got fired by Thornburgh. In fact,
    he said, ``Ayer proved''--this is in his book--``Ayer proved to
    have exaggerated notions of his responsibility to resent my
    confidence in Ross, Runkel, and Murray Dickman. Soon developing
    a serious chip on his shoulder, he began taking actions
    independent of, or in conflict with, my wishes. Once he sent a
    letter to Boyden Gray containing recommendations for corporate
    sentencing guidelines that I had not even reviewed. Ayers'
    resignation was announced on May 11th. Bill Barr succeeded him
    and proved to be the deputy I had needed from the beginning.''
        So, I can understand why you would be resentful 30 years
    later, but at some point, hopefully Mr. Ayers will get over his
    chip. The fact that Mr. Zelinsky, I was going to ask him
    questions but--and I understand family matters, and, by the
    way, I am grateful to my wife for sticking with me for 42 years
    today, and there are family matters. Yeah, she is a lot more
    fair than we are getting around here. So, 42 years. Thank you,
    Kathy.
        Some of us have family matters too that are very pressing,
    but this is very pressing too, and I won't try to compare
    those. Mr. Barr has come and testified, and he is coming again
    soon, so statements that he wouldn't come here, that is just
    not true.
        You know what? I have not heard anybody, any of these three
    Democrat witnesses, express any concern for the Justice
    Department under President Obama going after local law
    enforcement. Why? Because in the opinion of the Justice
    Department they violated people's civil rights. AG Barr had
    that same concern that people's civil rights were being
    violated by governors or local authorities, and if he had no
    right to say anything then the Justice Department under Obama
    had no right to pursue local law enforcement either.
        I guess it just, again, testifies to the credibility, or
    the lack thereof, of the people that have been brought before
    us. It is absolutely incredible that people could come in here,
    and after the Justice Department, including the FBI, intel, top
    people--even DoD was paying Stefan Halper--all these people
    were involved in trying to prevent a Republican from becoming
    President, and these three witnesses don't have any problem
    whatsoever with that. History will not judge you kindly in the
    days ahead, whether we get to continue this little experiment
    in self-government or not, because you have been an accomplice
    after the fact to what has occurred in the Justice Department,
    and you are so biased you cannot even see it.
        So, I don't have a lot of questions for people who don't
    have credibility, have chips on their shoulders. Mr. Elias, for
    heaven's sake, you come in here with your complaints. It is
    just a shame we don't have a serious hearing. It is just a
    sideshow, and it ought to be called for what it is, and that is
    why I am. If we are concerned about justice we need to get
    after the people that created the injustice through the last
    Administration.
        I yield back. Hank, I don't have any problem with you doing
    that.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back. The gentlelady
    from Texas.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chair, I know that we are not here to
    discuss personal matters of the witnesses. Let me acknowledge,
    General, for your presence here today, Mukasey. We have
    certainly worked together in the past. Let me acknowledge our
    three witnesses, of whom each and every one of you are
    patriots, and I thank you for your service.
        I am reminded of the time at the Department of Justice when
    those of us in the South, during the midst of the Civil Rights
    Movement, looked to the DOJ for the relief of then the
    Assistant Attorney General for civil rights--honest,
    straightforward in dealing with not the crisis but the
    bloodshed of the South, in the midst of fighting for freedom.
    They were a hand that we held onto.
        I am disappointed that we now face the circumstances of a
    drunken party gone wild. Sadly, the Department of Justice has
    gone wild. So, I think it is important that we highlight and
    begin to move on correcting the wildness, the out-of-
    controlness, and begin to focus on standing up a Justice
    Department that works for the American people.
        We heard today from all of you about the effects of the
    President's politicization of his Justice Department for his
    own ends. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle would
    like to suggest that this is not true. They want to cover their
    ears to this injustice. So, I would ask them what Jonathan
    Kravis, a career prosecutor with a decade of experience,
    similar to some of you here today, asked in his recent op-ed,
    quote, ``If the Department truly acted because of good faith,
    commitments to legal positions, then where is the evidence of
    those commitments in other cases that do not involve friends of
    the President? Where are the narcotics cases in which the
    Department has filed a sentencing memorandum overruling career
    prosecutors? Where are the other U.S. Attorneys who wouldn't go
    quietly into the night?''
        As Mr. Kravis wrote, ``There are none.'' All the cases are
    political cases, friends of the President. Is that because the
    only cases in the United States that warranted intervention by
    Department leadership happened to involve friends of the
    President? Of course not. Is that because attorney generals
    regularly lie to the American people about U.S. Attorneys
    resigning when, in reality, he is being pushed out for
    prosecuting the President's inner circle? Of course not.
    Remember, Attorney General Barr, it was the President that
    fired him. Remember the President saying, ``I had nothing to do
    with it. I didn't know anything about it.''
        What the Department of Justice is doing is an unprecedented
    erosion of our constitutional system. It has gone wild. My
    colleagues on the other side of the aisle have then refused to
    acknowledge the truth for a while. When asked about Lafayette
    Square they said they didn't see it firsthand. It is never
    acceptable to turn a blind eye to injustice, and thousands of
    former officials are now coming out to speak truth to power.
    There are literally thousands of individuals across Republican
    and Democratic Administrations. Over 2,000 that worked in the
    Department of Justice signed a letter.
        So, it is a grave threat to fair Administration in this
    nation. We are all equal before the law. A person should not be
    given special treatment in a criminal prosecution. Thousands of
    Department officials wrote again after the Flynn prosecution,
    expressing the same sentiment, and yesterday Members of George
    Washington Law School faculty did the same. Over 1,000 former
    DOJ talked about the rule of law.
        I believe it is a clear and present danger, and he must be
    held accountable, the Attorney General, who, yes, has been
    invited to this Committee but has refused over and over again.
        Mr. Ayer, you have served in multiple Administrations in
    both parties. Are these thousands of people right? Is Barr's
    current and present danger to our constitutional order of the
    rule of law--constitutional order, rule of law, and an even-
    handed Administration of justice? Is Attorney General Barr a
    current and present danger? Mr. Ayers.
        Mr. Ayer. Yes, Congressman Jackson Lee, I think he is, and
    that was the theme of what I tried to say before. I think
    essentially it is for two reasons. One is that he has a
    personal belief that the President should be above the law, and
    he has worked very hard to achieve that by negating the checks
    and balances in a variety of ways by making the President not
    accountable, stonewalling the Congress, stonewalling the
    Southern District of New York--I am sorry, the District
    Attorney's Office is trying to do a criminal investigation. So,
    preventing information from coming out, and otherwise
    essentially putting the President beyond the law.
        The second thing he is doing, and this has accelerated this
    spring, is getting involved in a very political, essentially in
    using the Justice Department to support the President's
    campaign, and comments he has made about opening up the
    country, the activities in Lafayette Square.
        The most serious problem here that I am concerned about is
    his accelerating recitation of this narrative about, I don't
    know what you call it, Obama-gate or deep State conspiracy or
    whatever it is, the thing that we were hearing from Ranking
    Member Jordan earlier. He is using the fact that he has his own
    investigation going on as a basis for supposed facts, to assert
    that these things are true.
        Number one, I don't believe they are true, but more
    importantly, that is a totally improper misuse of the
    Department of Justice. Even if those facts were true, it would
    be a violation of the Justice Department rules to be reporting
    to the public on things that he is supposedly finding in that
    investigation.
        If you look at my written submitted testimony you will see
    just a very concise chronicle of the number of times he has
    gone on television and on the radio to make these assertions in
    detail about these things that are going on. In fact, one of
    the ones that I had to chuckle about was on Sunday, with Maria
    Bartiromo. He actually said that he was surprised that the
    public doesn't seem to be paying attention to the things that
    he has been saying about these outrageous things that have been
    uncovered. He doesn't understand why people aren't paying
    enough attention to his reports on the Durham investigation.
    Well, that is gross violation of the Justice Department's
    policies, even if the facts were true, which I frankly think
    they clearly are not.
        So, we have a real problem here, and the drum beat of his
    misbehavior is accelerating as we get closer to the election. I
    don't know what is next, but I am scared to think about what it
    might be.
        Chair Nadler. The time of the gentlelady has expired.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chair, I would like to ask unanimous
    consent to submit into the record DOJ Alum Statement on Roger
    Stone, DOJ Alum Statement Regarding the Sentencing of Roger
    Stone, and the statement on Mr. Flynn, and DOJ Alum Statement
    to Michael Horowitz, the Inspector General. I ask unanimous
    consent to place these in the record at this time.
        Chair Nadler. Without objection.
        [The information follows:]

                         MS. JACKSON LEE FOR THE RECORD

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        Chair Nadler. As I notified Members during the markup on
    June 17th, I view the wearing of face masks as a safety issue
    and therefore as an important matter of order and decorum.
    Because I am responsible for preserving order and decorum in
    this committee, I am requiring Members and staff attending this
    hearing to wear face masks.
        I came to this decision after the Office of the Attending
    Physician released new guidance requiring masks in Committee
    hearings. The Chair's authority to enforce the preservation of
    order and decorum during Committee proceedings derives from the
    Speaker's enforcement authority under Clause 2 of Rule 1 of the
    House. The Chair would greatly prefer that all present simply
    uphold the decorum of the Committee by complying with these
    reasonable safety standards. Failing that, any member who fails
    to wear a mask will not be recognized.
        I now recognize Mr. Collins.
        Mr. Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that, and I
    would like to make a couple of statements. Number one, there
    may be discretion for the Chair in opening statements, and you
    may enjoy hearing Mr. Ayers talk, but under Rule 11 you do not
    have discretion of under the five-minute questioning rule to
    continue that.
        It is interesting, though, as we are talking about
    political consideration of prosecutors today. In fact, I have a
    really big problem going on right now in Fulton County,
    Georgia, where a prosecutor, it appears, has put political
    motivations in a reelection bid at the heart of going after the
    Atlanta Police Department. Just as was said earlier by the
    gentlelady from Texas, it is never acceptable to turn a blind
    eye to unfairness, and this needs to stop. Mr. Howard does need
    to remove himself. The investigation, which has never been done
    and finished, needs to continue so that the right can be done
    for all parties, as we have been speaking about prosecutorial
    ethics today.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Will the gentleman yield.
        Mr. Collins. No, I will not.
        Mr. Elias, do you consider yourself to be nonpolitical
    career staff? That was your statement. Correct?
        Mr. Elias. When I go into the Justice Department every day,
    as a career employee, I leave my politics at home, yes.
        Mr. Collins. Okay. That was the same as Mr. Zelinsky, Mr.
    Strzok, Ms. Page, and others have done that.
        Let me ask you a question. As a career staff, being
    nonpolitical, did you ever attempt to get detailed to this
    committee's majority staff?
        Mr. Elias. I, like--
        Mr. Collins. Yes or no.
        Mr. Elias. --people, over time, have explored various
    career options.
        Mr. Collins. Did you, within the last--under this majority,
    ask to be detailed to this majority staff?
        Mr. Elias. I had a very preliminary conversation with--
        Mr. Collins. So, you did have a conversation.
        Mr. Elias. Yes.
        Mr. Collins. Was it to work on antitrust policy?
        Mr. Elias. It was, yes.
        Mr. Collins. Okay. As we have all sworn under oath here, in
    fact, did you not ask to be detailed on the committee's work on
    oversight during impeachment? Is that not correct? Refresh your
    memory.
        Mr. Elias. I may have also asked for oversight at one
    point, with the blessing of Assistant Attorney General.
        Mr. Collins. Okay. So, you asked to come to this committee.
    As a career staffer, nonpolitical career staffer, you were
    asking to be detailed to this Committee to work on impeachment.
    You wanted to come work for the majority during the impeachment
    of Donald Trump. Is that not correct?
        If not--I understand how that answer would be troubling.
    So, if you want to just stop right there--
        Mr. Elias. I actually think it was a year prior. I honestly
    think it was.
        Mr. Collins. Detailed to this majority--we were the
    majority beforehand. This was to the majority.
        Mr. Elias. It was early 2019.
        Mr. Collins. Okay. That's the majority of this staff here,
    and we were starting every investigation known to man at that
    point. In fact, they hired very good attorneys out of New York,
    and I have become friends with them. You asked to come to this
    committee.
        So a little bit of the career staff--let's just leave it
    there. Let's go to your actual testimony today.
        Mr. Elias. Okay.
        Mr. Collins. In your written testimony you contended that
    mergers with cannabis industries were, quote, ``unlikely to
    raise significant competitive concerns.'' You further stated
    that few of the documents produced in response to the subpoenas
    were ever reviewed by Antitrust Division staff. You essentially
    said that the second requests were made for purposes of
    burdening these companies.
        So, you filed, as you stated earlier, a DOJ complaint about
    this with the Inspector General. Is that correct? Yes or no.
        Mr. Elias. Yes.
        Mr. Collins. Okay. The Inspector General handed the
    complaint over to the Office of Professional Responsibility for
    the investigation. Correct?
        Mr. Elias. No.
        Mr. Collins. Excuse me?
        Mr. Elias. The Office of Special Counsel handed it to the
    Office of Professional Responsibility.
        Mr. Collins. So, it was handed over and investigated.
        Mr. Elias. Yes.
        Mr. Collins. Is that not correct?
        Mr. Elias. That is correct.
        Mr. Collins. Okay. So, as your reading--and that is fine;
    you can give your half of the story--continuing on, the letter
    of the Office of Professional Responsibility, the Office of
    Professional Responsibility indicated that they conducted a
    thorough review of the claims and concluded they were without
    merit. Is that not true?
        Mr. Elias. So, they concluded that even if the
    investigations were motivated by animosity, that would still
    comply with the DOJ.
        Mr. Collins. So, my answer to my question is yes. In fact,
    what did the letter say? It said from the OPR review, the
    submissions from the whistleblower's counsel and ATR conducted
    its own review of the relevant laws, regulations, rules,
    policies, guidelines governing the issuance of a second
    request, and reviewed publicly available information concerning
    the cannabis industry. OPR's review found support for the ATR's
    response. The cannabis industry provided a unique challenge to
    the Federal and State regulators alike and it was reasonable
    for ATR to seek additional information from the industry
    through its second request process.
        In addition, contrary to the whistleblower's allegations,
    the documents provided by ATR reflect significant and
    successful negotiations among ATR and the cannabis companies
    concerning the narrowing of the scope of the second request.
        Furthermore, the internal memorandum recommended the
    closure of the investigation, stating that ATR staff conducted
    a significant amount of analysis regarding the competitive
    impact of the proposed mergers, and often explained how the
    actions of State regulators offset competitive concerns,
    basically undercutting the very discussion that you had in your
    opening statement.
        The concern even goes on further, and this is an
    interesting one. You wrote in your written testimony that the
    cannabis industry, you refer to the staff, quote, ``were not
    instructed to conduct interviews of customers,'' and that
    marijuana is not a Schedule 1 drug. Correct? Is it a Schedule 1
    or not?
        Mr. Elias. I am not--
        Mr. Collins. That is an easy one.
        Mr. Elias. --sure exactly which schedule it is on, but it
    is on one of them, yes.
        Mr. Collins. You were part of an antitrust in marijuana and
    didn't know how it was scheduled, and then asked to be part of
    this committee?
        Mr. Elias, the credibility of this is going downhill
    quickly here. Mr. Chair, I mean, at this point in time, I am
    entering into the record the letter from the Office of
    Professional Responsibility, basically clearing anything that
    was done in DOJ. I ask that it be committed into the record.
        Chair Nadler. Without objection.
        [The information follows:]

                           MR. COLLINS FOR THE RECORD

    =======================================================================

    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Collins. I yield back.
        Mr. Elias. Mr. Chair, if I could respond?
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
        I want to note that Mr. Elias' political inclinations and
    job prospects, obviously, have absolutely no bearing on whether
    the serious allegations that he is making about the Attorney
    General are true. That is the subject of this hearing, and
    anything else is merely a personal attack and a distraction
    from the corruption he has uncovered at the department.
        Mr. Collins. It goes directly to intent of the witness.
        Chair Nadler. It is understandable why some Members may
    want to change the subject, but I hope we will focus on the
    issue at hand.
        Mr. Collins. The intent.
        Chair Nadler. Mr. Cohen is recognized.
        Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is interesting how all
    these things kind of come together. Today, a three-judge
    Federal panel, district court of appeals here, said that the
    Flynn case could be dismissed, and the person that wrote that
    opinion was Judge Rao. Judge Rao had been at ORIAA, the agency
    that reviews regulations and does what Trump likes best, which
    is jeopardize the safe air and water of the American public and
    give in to industry, profits, and pollution. She did a good job
    of it. The case she was most well-known for was overriding
    President Obama's regulations on automobile exhaust.
        She became a judge a year ago. She said today, ``The
    District Court's actions will result in specific harms to the
    exercise of the Executive branch's exclusive prosecutorial
    power. If evidence comes to light calling into question the
    integrity of purpose of an underlying criminal investigation,
    the Executive branch must have the authority to decide that
    further prosecution is not in the interest of justice.''
        Well, I wonder, Judge Rao, who is supposed to look into the
    Executive branch when what they do is not in the interest of
    justice. Well, it should have been Judge Rao. It was one of the
    three judges, and maybe the full panel will review it. They
    should. The other way to do it is impeachment, and impeachment
    is the process by which, if the Justice Department and the
    Executive branch are not pursuing the interest of justice, is
    the process left. Even if the ultimate trier of the Senate is
    impotent to see the truth and to exercise discretion in keeping
    with the American public and with the rule of law, we should
    pursue impeachment of Bill Barr, because he is reigning terror
    on the rule of law, and it is questionable what he is doing.
        Mr. Mukasey, you said that there was an 1807 law, the Logan
    Act, and you disparaged it because it was an old law. Is that
    correct, that was the one that was used to prosecute?
        Mr. Mukasey. I did not disparage it because it was an old
    law. There are many old laws that are very fine. Our
    Constitution is even older.
        Mr. Cohen. You said that it was 1807, hardly ever used, and
    you disparaged it, in the terminology that--
        Mr. Mukasey. I didn't use the specific date, 1807. What I
    said was it has never been prosecuted successfully. It was
    prosecuted twice, in the 18th and in the beginning of the 19th
    century, both unsuccessfully, and that it is probably
    unconstitutional.
        Mr. Cohen. Well, thank you, sir. I would just note that
    Bill Barr used an 1807 law, the Insurrection Act, to interfere
    with First amendment rights so that the President could march
    through Lafayette Park and do his photo op, holding a Bible in
    front of a church, not quote from the Bible, not lead people in
    prayer, but have a photo op in front of a church--a desecration
    of the Bible and a desecration of that church. So that was an
    1807 law.
        Mr. Elias, you have testified as to cases that justice and
    antitrust took up concerning areas that otherwise, you didn't
    think, and the Justice Department superiors didn't think were
    worthy of antitrust investigations. One was cannabis.
        Mr. Elias. That is correct.
        Mr. Cohen. Does that cost the cannabis folks a lot of
    money?
        Mr. Elias. Absolutely. These subpoenas that get issued that
    require production of millions of documents is very burdensome.
        Mr. Cohen. So, it was harassment by Bill Barr of an
    industry he didn't like. Is that right?
        Mr. Elias. I think that's a fair way to characterize it,
    yes.
        Mr. Cohen. Ironically, that, just like Judge Rao, it all
    comes back to one place. Barr doesn't like marijuana, marijuana
    is seven times more likely to be enforced against young African
    Americans, breeding discontent with police, and breeding
    interactions with police. Barr doesn't care about that type of
    stuff because he doesn't like marijuana so that is okay. That
    is one of the breeding grounds of distrust of African Americans
    and police, and police and African American contact and
    problems. Very unfortunate.
        You also brought up the antitrust case, which brings us
    back here with Judge Rao, on the antitrust with the automobile
    manufacturers. Did Mercedes-Benz not join in on that case
    later?
        Mr. Elias. That is correct.
        Mr. Cohen. Why do you think Mercedes-Benz didn't join in on
    that case?
        Mr. Elias. So, I have read news reports that the German
    government discouraged it from joining because of the DOJ
    investigation. I don't have firsthand knowledge of those
    events.
        Mr. Cohen. So, the likelihood is President Trump, who
    didn't like what Governor Newsom did, got his way and kept
    Mercedes-Benz out of it, and was able to try to change them
    from taking their position to be similar.
        Let me ask, Mr. Mukasey, let me ask you this. Mr. Zelinsky
    testified that for the guidelines where the defendant went to
    trial and remained unrepentant, in his experience it was
    unheard of, especially like in Stone's case and lead-up to the
    trial, we were told at no time, no one in the Fraud and Public
    Corruption Section of the United States Attorney's Office in
    DC, which prosecuted that case, at no time could he ever
    recall, or anyone recall where the government did not seek
    guideline sentencings after trial.
        Do you know of any cases where the Fraud and Public
    Integrity Section did not seek guideline representation?
        Mr. Mukasey. I do not, nor do I know of any cases--
        Mr. Cohen. Thank you, sir. You don't, because there is not
    a case. There isn't a case, but Bill Barr did it because
    Trump's friend--
        Mr. Biggs. Point of order. The witness was trying to answer
    the question.
        Mr. Mukasey. That was not a guideline recommendation. It
    was a travesty of a guideline recommendation.
        Mr. Cohen. I have the time, and I don't know who over there
    is playing--I have the time. This is a travesty because--
        Mr. Jordan. Point of order. The gentleman's time has
    expired.
        Mr. Cohen. --it was another case where politics is
    overcoming the rule of law and destroying America.
        I yield back the balance of my time.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back. Mr. Johnson.
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Questions
    for Mr. Zelinsky, if he can hear us on video.
        Mr. Zelinsky, where are you physically located today?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I am in my attorney's office.
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. What State is that, sir?
        Mr. Zelinsky. It is in the District of Columbia.
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. So how far are you,
    approximately, from where we sit right now?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I would guess about a half mile.
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Hmm. What is your reason for not
    appearing here today, sir?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Well, thank you for allowing me to clarify.
    As a prosecutor, particularly with the experiences that I have
    had in Baltimore, I am reticent to discuss my family publicly--
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. You have family concerns. Is that
    right? Is that right? That is what you testified earlier.
        Mr. Zelinsky. I have a newborn child, Congressman. My wife
    is a physician, we discussed the matter.
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Okay. Fair enough.
        Mr. Zelinsky. I am actually on--
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Listen. I just want to--listen,
    it is my time. Hold on. Mr. Zelinsky, because you are an
    attorney you know that having a witness appear and submit to
    cross-examination in person is obviously much more effective
    and reliable than one who simply phones it in. We will leave it
    at that.
        I just want to point out the Honorable Judge Mukasey showed
    up, flew from New York. He has family concerns as well. Many
    people do here as well. In fact, he has got to quarantine
    himself after this hearing because he has a young grandchild
    who is sick with other--
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman is improper.
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. It is my time.
        Chair Nadler. The witness is complying with the rules of
    the House. We make no distinction between people who are
    present physically and people who are present by video.
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Mr. Chair, it is my time, and it
    is not inappropriate, and you don't get to decide how I ask my
    questions with all due respect.
        Chair Nadler. Oh yes, I do.
        You said in your opening, Mr. Zelinsky, that we don't
    prosecute people based on politics. The question is, do you
    investigate people based on politics?
        Mr. Zelinsky. No.
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. A couple of questions for you
    related to Inspector General Horowitz's report outlining the
    FBI's improper FISA surveillance of Carter Page. You are
    familiar with that, correct?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I have read press reports regarding it. I
    have read some of the report. I have not studied it closely.
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Do you know what role Christopher
    Steele played in the FBI's investigation of Carter Page?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I only know what has been publicly reported
    and what is in the Inspector General's report, Congressman.
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. If you are familiar with the
    report then you must know that it states, at page 359, quote,
    ``We concluded that Crossfire Hurricane team's receipt of
    Steele's election reporting on September 19, 2016, played a
    central and essential role in the decision by the FBI OGC to
    support the request for FISA surveillance targeting Carter
    Page, as well as the Department's ultimate decision to seek the
    FISA order.'' Does that sound familiar?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I have no reason to doubt that you are
    accurately reading from the report.
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. What discussions did the Special
    Counsel team have about Christopher Steele?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Congressman, I have been asked by the
    Department, because of privilege, not to discuss matters
    related to the Special Counsel's Office. I am happy to go back
    to the Department, as I have been told that I should do, to ask
    them if I can answer your question, and if I am able to provide
    you an answer at a later time. I have been told by the
    Department that my testimony today has been cleared only for
    matters related to United States v. Roger Stone.
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. That is pretty convenient. The
    subpoena that you were issued says, ``You are hereby commanded
    to be and appear before the Committee on the Judiciary to
    testify at a hearing touching matters of inquiry committed to
    said Committee or subcommittee, and you are not to depart
    without leave of said Committee or subcommittee.''
        The point is, Mr. Zelinsky, it would be very useful to have
    you here. It would be very useful to have you speaking to the
    full scope of the concerns of this Committee and things that we
    have been working on for a long time. We think it is very
    unfortunate that you could not make your appearance here today,
    especially since you are a half a mile away and others took
    great risks to be here.
        Look, I am not quibbling with you about family concerns,
    but a lot of people have them, and this is a very important
    matter for the country. I think we all agree to that. We have
    concern that this is being politicized, and that the current
    Attorney General's Office is being accused of politicizing
    something, when what he is trying to do is clear up and clean
    up messes that were made by his predecessors, in previous
    Administration.
        Everybody can look at the facts, I guess, and draw their
    own conclusions, but it would be helpful if we were able to--
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Will the gentleman yield.
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I won't yield.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Will the gentleman yield?
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I will not yield, because our
    problem with this is not only with the process, as has been
    stated, with the unequal Administration of the rules here, but
    with the way that this committee's time is being used right
    now. With all the important issues that are within our scope of
    jurisdiction, with all the pressing matters facing the country
    right now, this is a farce, and we are really sorry that you
    couldn't be here for it.
        Mr. Cicilline. Mr. Johnson, will you yield.
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I will yield.
        Mr. Cicilline. I would just urge you to consider, when you
    say, ``with all the pressing issues,'' is there any issue more
    pressing than the integrity of the Administration of justice.
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Yeah, absolutely, I am reclaiming
    my time.
        Mr. Cicilline. I mean, is there anything more important?
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Reclaiming my time.
        We would love to have hearings about the origins of the
    Russia collusion thing that you guys wasted the country's time
    on for five or six months, and the sham impeachment. Don't get
    me started because I am out of time. I yield back.
        Mr. Cohen. Ask John Bolton about the sham impeachment.
        Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Not your time. Not your time.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr.
    Johnson.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Zelinsky,
    and Mr. Elias, you put duty over country, and you have come to
    testify today, putting your job at risk, and I think the Nation
    owes you both a debt of gratitude for coming forward as
    whistleblowers.
        Now, Mr. Elias, last summer the State of California
    announced that it had reached an agreement with four automakers
    on air quality standards that would be stricter than the rules
    the Trump Administration was preparing to adopt for the
    country. Correct?
        Mr. Elias. Yes. That is correct.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. When California announced that
    agreement, President Trump made clear that he did not like it,
    didn't he?
        Mr. Elias. He did criticize the agreement on Twitter, yes.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. On August 20, 2019, The New York
    Times reported that he was, quote, ``enraged by California's
    deal,'' end quote. Trump even apparently called a White House
    meeting to plot ways to retaliate, all because he resented the
    fact that California and the four automakers would dare to
    undermine his loosening of air quality emission standards. So,
    the next day, August 21st, Trump went public and he threatened
    the four automakers, saying that these these companies, quote,
    ``will be out of business,'' end quote, if they don't get in
    line.
        Then, the day after those tweets, August 22nd, President
    Trump's Justice Department followed through on that threat.
    That is when Attorney General--Assistant Attorney General
    Delrahim gave an instruction to your division to start an
    antitrust investigation immediately into those four automakers.
    Is that correct?
        Mr. Elias. That is when the instruction to open the
    investigation happened, on August 22nd, yes.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. So, the President tweets out
    threats, and then the next day the automakers get hit with an
    antitrust investigation. That is what happened, didn't it?
        Mr. Elias. A point I would like to underscore is normally
    for significant, complicated matters, people put time and
    attention into assessing a potential--
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. You didn't have any time to do that
    because the President made the order on August 21st, and the
    investigation began on August 22nd.
        Mr. Elias. There was very little time between those two
    events, yes.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Do you believe that the Department
    commenced that investigation based on good faith belief that
    they had committed a violation of the antitrust laws, or not?
        Mr. Elias. So, the career staff who examined it saw some
    very obvious defenses, things called State action, Noerr-
    Pennington, and you really have to twist things to get around
    those. So, it did not appear to be in good faith, no.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. That investigation didn't have
    anything to do with protecting the American people from anti-
    competitive behavior, did it?
        Mr. Elias. So, the career staff who reviewed it had some
    grave concerns about opening it, especially the people who were
    then charged with actually conducting the investigation. They
    documented their concerns with the legal underpinning of the
    case. If you are immune from eventual prosecution for
    something, because you have a legal defense, you should be
    immune from investigation for having--
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. The law was clear that the State of
    California was immune.
        Mr. Elias. So, what I describe in my complaint is how staff
    was not given enough time to go through and properly
    understand--
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. I wish I could give you a chance to
    explain more, but bottom line, it wasn't a legitimate antitrust
    investigation, was it?
        Mr. Elias. That is what my complaint alleges, yes.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. If it had been, the first step
    would have been for the Department to get with California
    officials and get the facts from those officials, but it never
    did even establish contact with California, did it, before it
    instituted the investigation?
        Mr. Elias. That step is permitted even before an
    investigation. You could have resolved things even before
    opening the investigation. It is correct, yeah, to my knowledge
    they were never contacted.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. So, what we have here is a clear-
    cut case of the Antitrust Division being made to respond to a
    President's tweet the day before, to begin an investigation
    that had no basis in law or in fact. Would you describe that as
    an abuse of authority of the upper echelons of the Justice
    Department?
        Mr. Elias. I did submit my complaint to the IG on the
    grounds that the events here constituted an abuse of authority.
        Mr. Johnson of Georgia. All right. With that I will yield
    back. Thank you.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back. Mr. Jordan.
        Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Zelinsky, it seems to
    me you have got just one problem. The judge disagreed with you.
        Mr. Zelinsky. Congressman, as I said, I am not here to
    critique the judge's sentence. We need to follow DoJ--
        Mr. Jordan. Well, you write Mr. Zelinsky, a 13-page
    statement for your statement to this committee. You allege all
    kinds of politics. You go after the Justice Department. You go
    after Bill Barr. You go after the President. You file a
    sentencing memo on February 10th, recommending seven to nine
    years. The very next day your boss files a supplemental
    sentencing memo recommending three to four years, and nine days
    later Judge Berman Jackson picks the three-to-four-year
    sentence. So, the judge disagreed with you.
        Mr. Zelinsky. Congressman, I don't agree with the premise
    of your question on two levels. The first is the--
        Mr. Jordan. Well, tell me what in that fact pattern is
    wrong. Didn't Roger Stone get 40 months?
        Mr. Zelinsky. The supplemental memo, Congressman, did not
    recommend three to four years. It recommended a sentence of
    incarceration. The supplemental memo also mischaracterized
    other aspects of the guidelines--
        Mr. Jordan. Mr. Zelinsky--
        Mr. Zelinsky. --and mischaracterized it--
        Mr. Jordan. --I have looked at the supplemental--I have
    looked at the supplemental memo and it said 37 to 47 months.
    What was the--take away the enhancement. It said 37 to 47
    months. Those were the numbers referred in the memo, and Judge
    Berman Jackson picked 40 months. She didn't pick seven to nine
    years. Is that right?
        Mr. Zelinsky. She sentenced Mr. Stone to 40 months. That is
    correct.
        Mr. Jordan. That is between three and four years, exactly
    what was in the supplemental memo. Did you talk to Bill Barr
    about your concerns?
        Mr. Zelinsky. No. As I stated, I did not talk to the
    Attorney General.
        Mr. Jordan. You didn't talk to the Attorney--did you talk
    to the DAG? Did you talk to the Deputy Attorney General?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I was not provided the opportunity.
        Mr. Jordan. Did you talk to Mr. Shea? Did you talk to the
    U.S. Attorney?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I requested to, but was not given a meeting.
        Mr. Jordan. So, you didn't talk to any of the people who
    ultimately make these decisions, did you, Mr. Zelinsky?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I requested to speak with the U.S. Attorney,
    but I was not allowed.
        Mr. Jordan. I didn't ask you if you requested. I said did
    you talk to them? You didn't talk to the Attorney General,
    didn't talk to the DAG, didn't talk to the U.S. Attorney. Who
    is the supervisor?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Which supervisor are you referring to?
        Mr. Jordan. I am talking about the one you referenced about
    six times in your testimony. Page 2, ``It was told to me at the
    time, by my supervisor in the U.S. Attorney's Office.'' You
    said, ``I was told that the Acting U.S. Attorney for the
    District of Columbia, Timothy Shea, was receiving heavy
    pressure from the highest levels of the Department of
    Justice.''
        On page 10 of your testimony, you say this, ``I was
    explicitly told that the motivation for changing the sentencing
    memo was political and because the U.S. Attorney was `afraid of
    the President.' ''
        Who told you?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Thank you for clarifying, Congressman. I just
    want to be sure that I get the right supervisor because there
    are a couple of supervisors that told me things.
        Mr. Jordan. Well, tell me all their names then.
        Mr. Zelinsky. So, the supervisor for the questions you were
    asking is the supervisor of the Fraud and Public Corruption
    Section at the time in the U.S. Attorney's Office.
        Mr. Jordan. Who?
        Mr. Zelinsky. His name is J.P. Cooney.
        Mr. Jordan. All right. Who else?
        Mr. Zelinsky. At the time in the office there was a first
    assistant, there was a criminal chief. They were all involved
    in these discussions, to my knowledge.
        Mr. Jordan. Did any of them talk to the Attorney General,
    the Deputy Attorney General, or Mr. Shea?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Yes. My understanding is they did.
        Mr. Jordan. Well, did it--not understanding. Did they, or
    didn't they?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Congressman, I can only tell you what I know.
    I can tell you, from what I understand.
        Mr. Jordan. It sounds like you don't know much. It sounds
    like you heard stuff that you are now bringing to this
    Committee as fact. So-and-so says to someone what they told
    someone else, and you bring that here as fact. Yet you didn't
    talk to the Attorney General?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Congressman--
        Mr. Jordan. You didn't talk to the Deputy Attorney General,
    and didn't talk to the U.S. Attorney, who made the decision,
    and oh, by the way, the judge sided with their supplemental
    memo, not the memo you signed.
        Mr. Zelinsky. Congressman, as I said, I don't agree with
    the premises of your question, and I am happy to explain
    further involving sentencing. My understanding is that all the
    people I mentioned, those supervisors, were all in meetings
    with Acting U.S. Attorney Shea.
        Mr. Jordan. Well, I just--this is as bad the whole
    impeachment, the anonymous whistleblower who had no firsthand
    knowledge, was biased against the President, and who worked for
    Joe Biden. Now, we have a so-called whistleblower with no
    firsthand knowledge, who didn't talk to any of the people who
    make the decisions, and who is obviously biased against the
    Attorney General. It seems just as bad, just as lame as what we
    went through just a few months back.
        It seems to me, as others have pointed out--I know my time
    is winding down--that the real politics here was in some of the
    investigations that took place prior, and when we have some
    time, I would like to get into that as well, Mr. Chair.
        With that I yield back.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back. Mr. Deutch?
        Mr. Deutch. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Zelinsky, I would
    like to follow up on Mr. Jordan's questions and ask about the
    severity of Roger Stone's crimes. He was convicted on one count
    of witness tampering and six counts of obstructing a
    congressional investigation by making numerous false
    statements. Isn't that right?
        Mr. Zelinsky. He was actually convicted on the one count of
    obstructing a congressional investigation, five counts of lying
    to Congress, and one count of tampering with a witness,
    Congressman.
        Mr. Deutch. What did he lie about?
        Mr. Zelinsky. He lied, as I go over my written remarks,
    about a number of things, including what he was doing in the
    summer of 2016 related to Wikileaks, and what he was telling
    the Trump campaign about it.
        Mr. Deutch. He lied about providing information stolen by a
    foreign government to Trump's campaign. Isn't that right?
        Mr. Zelinsky. He lied about providing information to
    Trump's campaign regarding the Wikileaks material.
        Mr. Deutch. Yes.
        Mr. Zelinsky. That is correct.
        Mr. Deutch. Right. Were these minor misstatements or did
    they impact the congressional investigation?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Both the judge found at the sentencing, and
    we argued that they profoundly impacted the House Permanent
    Select Committee on Intelligence and Investigations.
        Mr. Deutch. The judge found that too. That is helpful.
    Roger Stone communicated with Wikileaks and then lied when he
    said he didn't tell the Trump campaign staff, even Donald Trump
    himself. Isn't that right?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Mr. Stone lied about what he told the Trump
    campaign regarding Wikileaks. That is correct.
        Mr. Deutch. Right. What did Roger Stone that threatened a
    witness?
        Mr. Zelinsky. He did a number of things. He had told the
    witness to prepare to die. He had threatened the witness' dog.
    He had threatened to harm the career of one of the witness'
    friends. He had written a slew of nasty messages to the
    witness.
        Mr. Deutch. I know that we have been talking about these
    issues for a while. It is worth pointing out, he told the
    witness to prepare to die. Did it appear that the threats
    worked, Mr. Zelinsky? Did they impact the witness' testimony?
        Mr. Zelinsky. They did.
        Mr. Deutch. Mr. Zelinsky, would you say that these are
    serious offenses?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Yes.
        Mr. Deutch. Help us understand. How did you come up with
    the seven-to-nine-year recommendations? Did you follow the
    guideline? Was it at the top or bottom of the range? What were
    the enhancements that increased the sentencing range?
        Mr. Zelinsky. So, in coming to the recommendation we did,
    we do what we do in every case. We consult the PSR which is a
    report that is prepared by the court, we consult the relevant
    Department of Justice policies, and then we look at the
    guidelines for sentencing.
        It is important to understand that the guidelines in this
    case were clear and the applications were readily apparent. It
    was not a tough calculation. After looking at that, what other
    sentences have been, we determine what a reasonable sentence
    would be in this case.
        Mr. Deutch. Normally the Department defends recommendations
    within the guidelines range, don't they?
        Mr. Zelinsky. It is the policy of the Department, and
    reiterated in a memo in 2017, to set guidelines
    recommendations, in general.
        Mr. Deutch. In your written testimony you stated the team
    was pressured to submit inaccurate guidelines calculations that
    would result in a lower sentencing range. What was the nature
    of that pressure, Mr. Zelinsky?
        Mr. Zelinsky. So, there were meetings the Members of my
    team had with leadership at the U.S. Attorney's Office and the
    Acting U.S. Attorney, where he sought to get us not to ask for
    the guidelines that really applied.
        Mr. Deutch. So, after the pressure you submitted your
    sentencing memo. Then the Department leadership submitted a new
    sentencing memo for a lighter sentence. That is very much
    outside the normal practice, in your experience, isn't it?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I think outside of normal practice is not an
    accurate description. Unprecedented and virtually unheard of is
    what I would call it.
        Mr. Deutch. After your sentencing recommendation was
    overruled, you and your entire team withdrew from the case. Why
    did you do that?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Because we took an oath to prosecute without
    fear of favor, and we weren't going to violate our oath.
        Mr. Deutch. Mr. Zelinsky, it was political pressure that
    got Roger Stone a lighter sentence than he deserved. Mr. Stone
    got special treatment because of his connections to the
    President. That is not justice. The rule of law is supposed to
    mean equality under the law. Now, this case is a glaring
    example of Bill Barr corrupting DOJ, undermining equality in
    our legal system, and that is one of the reasons that we are
    here today.
        On Monday you did your job and filed your recommendations
    to hold Roger Stone accountable. In the middle of that very
    night, the President tweeted, and Bill Barr's DOJ snapped into
    action the next day to take pressure off. That, Mr. Zelinsky,
    is not justice.
        I yield back.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
        Mr. Johnson?
        [No response.]
        Chair Nadler. Mr. McClintock?
        [No response.]
        Chair Nadler. Mr. Biggs?
        Mr. Biggs. Am I recognized, Mr. Chair?
        Mr. Chair, am I recognized?
        Chair Nadler. Yes.
        Mr. Biggs. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        So, I do find the setting for this to be deliciously ironic
    on the day that the Circuit Court dismissed the Flynn
    prosecution because, you see, the Flynn case typifies the
    previous Administration's abuse of the process for political
    reasons.
        I mean, you have a political appointee who is attacked,
    leveraged. They went after him for political purposes. Used and
    abused the power and authority that they have.
        In fact, they knew it was bogus all along. I mean, even
    Peter Strzok's notes indicate pretty clearly that Director
    Comey acknowledged that General Flynn's phone calls with
    Ambassador Kislyak appear legit and those were the basis for
    trying to invoke even the Logan Act.
        I mean, that is really kind of the way it is. I thank Judge
    Mukasey for being here today.
        Judge Mukasey, Chair indicated in his opening that he views
    Attorney General Barr as a fixer for President Trump.
        Yet, what we have here is the President--excuse me,
    Attorney General Barr saying that ``President Trump has never
    asked me to do anything in a criminal case,'' and wishes that
    he would stop tweeting because ``it makes it impossible for me
    to do my job.''
        Does that sound like a guy who is a fixer?
        Mr. Mukasey. Not to me, sir.
        Mr. Biggs. Well, how about this? If you heard somebody, say
    this, that ``I am still the President's wing man so I am there
    with my boy,'' does that sound maybe like--if that is coming
    from an attorney general does that sound like somebody who may
    be more of a fixer?
        Mr. Mukasey. I don't know about fixer. If I had ever said
    anything like that when I was Attorney General, I would have
    expected to return to the department and find the building
    empty with a pile of resignations on my desk.
        Mr. Biggs. So, that statement was made by former Attorney
    General Holder. So, my question is, we know that under Attorney
    General Holder, DOJ went after multitudes of investigative
    journalists.
        Judge Mukasey, have you heard, or do you have any
    information whether under William Barr, for whatever reason,
    that he has gone after investigative journalist?
        Mr. Mukasey. I do not.
        Mr. Biggs. Then we know that under that department, that
    Justice Department, they prosecuted whistleblowers. I know
    President Trump has expressed exasperation and disapprobation
    of certain whistleblowers and wished that they were prosecuted.
        Do you know of any prosecutions administered by this
    Administration under William Barr of whistleblowers?
        Mr. Mukasey. I don't. I don't.
        Mr. Biggs. We could go over a whole plethora of these types
    of things. Civil Rights Division, U.S. Commission on Civil
    Rights--they dismissed voter intimidation lawsuits.
        I guess my question for you is do you know of any dismissal
    of voter intimidation lawsuits on the part of William Barr?
        Mr. Mukasey. No, although I would have to say I have not
    made a particular study of that area.
        Mr. Biggs. Fair enough. Fair enough.
        I don't know of any. The Fast and Furious issue--in that
    particular situation, Attorney General Holder would not come in
    for over a year to testify. Attorney General Barr has been in
    to testify. He has indicated a willingness to come back and
    then testify.
        The whole plethora of abuses by the previous
    Administration's politicized Attorney General's office leads me
    to ask this question of my colleagues, and I think it has been
    typified of what we have seen here today.
        We have gone through here, there has been running over of
    the minority by the rules. It is really problematic. It really
    is problematic.
        If you want to know why this body, this group, this
    Committee gets out of hand from time to time, people talking
    across each other, I am going to tell you what it is.
        It is when you don't invoke and follow the rules you become
    a little bit chippy, and that is what we have in this
    committee, and it is because we don't have the rules fairly and
    evenly followed.
        That is the crying shame of this, Mr. Chair.
        With that, I yield back.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
        Mr. Richmond?
        Mr. Richmond. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. Chair, let me just start by saying that part of our
    colleagues said that the whole hearing is here so that we can
    embarrass the President.
        Let us just be clear. If we wanted to embarrass the
    President, we would sit back and do nothing and just let him
    continue to embarrass himself and say that you should drink
    bleach or disinfectant to cure COVID-19, that he has slowed
    down testing, that it will magically go away, or the absurd
    statement that he has done more for Black people than Abraham
    Lincoln.
        So, in law we just say res ipsa loquitur, which means the
    thing speaks for itself. So instead of trying to embarrass the
    President, we would just let him continue to do it himself.
        What we are here today to talk about is the abuse of power,
    the miscarriage of justice.
        So, Mr. Zelinsky, let me just go to you, and I think that I
    want to follow up on what Mr. Deutch was talking about and that
    is to really understand why Roger Stone got such special
    treatment but make sure we focus on the context of his crime.
        So, what his crime was was lying to Congress about his
    dealings with the Trump campaign, one of the convictions,
    right?
        Mr. Zelinsky. That was one of his crimes, yes.
        Mr. Richmond. The summer before the elections, Stone told
    the Trump campaign that he had, quote, ``a plan to save Trump's
    butt'' and he knew how, but to win--``but it wouldn't be
    pretty.''
        Do you recall that?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Yes, Congressman. I think you have replaced
    the profanity with another one. That is correct.
        Mr. Richmond. Then also, Mr. Zelinsky, what was Mr. Stone's
    plan?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Testimony at trial indicated that this was
    related to Wikileaks.
        Mr. Richmond. Did you find evidence that Stone communicated
    with senior levels of the Trump campaign about Wikileaks
    releasing stolen information about Trump's opponent?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Yes.
        Mr. Richmond. In fact, there are dozens of calls between
    Stone and the Trump campaign's top officials, right?
        Mr. Zelinsky. That is correct.
        Mr. Richmond. Also, during that time, did you find evidence
    that Stone was talking to Trump directly?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Yes.
        Mr. Richmond. In fact, our witnesses also testified that
    they were present when Stone spoke to then candidate Trump,
    right?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Mr. Gates testified to that at trial. Mr.
    Cohen testified to that at Congress and Mr. Manafort told that
    to the Special Counsel's office.
        Mr. Richmond. Did you all find any records for these calls?
        Mr. Zelinsky. As I discussed earlier, it is difficult to
    know because we can't get content. We can only see call detail
    records--when calls happened.
        There certainly are calls within that time period. It is
    impossible to know the content. Only the people on the calls or
    anyone that overheard them would know the answer to that.
        Mr. Richmond. Why that is so startling is because President
    Trump's written answers to the Special Counsel he denied
    recalling having any conversations with Stone at all that
    summer and he denied being aware Stone was having any
    conversations with Wikileaks or anyone on his campaign.
        Do you remember that?
        Mr. Zelinsky. You have accurately described the President's
    answers. Yes, Congressman.
        Mr. Richmond. Mr. Zelinsky, have Roger Stone and Donald
    Trump have been friends for over 30 years?
        Mr. Zelinsky. The evidence introduced at trial showed that
    to be the case, and Mr. Stone--and I believe the President has
    acknowledged that as well publicly.
        Mr. Richmond. So, you found evidence from multiple sources
    that Roger Stone regularly communicated with the Trump campaign
    about the stolen information.
        You also found evidence from multiple sources that Roger
    Stone talked to President Trump, his friend of 30 years,
    directly during this time, and you have phone records
    corroborating all of this.
        Yet, the President doesn't remember speaking to Roger
    Stone. Then when you recommend seven to nine years for Stone's
    crimes, all of a sudden your department gets pressure from the
    top to give Stone an unprecedentedly favorable treatment.
        Is that a correct characterization?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Congressman, I want to be very careful on how
    you describe the phone records that would give corroboration.
    We have call detail records. They don't give the full universe
    of possible calls because we only have them for the number that
    we have.
        So, for example, a conversation took place on a line that
    we had not subpoenaed or someone else's phone, we wouldn't have
    them.
        As I said before, we do not know the content of the calls.
    We know only what people testified. So, I want to be very
    careful as to what we say about call detail records.
        Mr. Richmond. That is fair. Let me tell you, as a former
    defense attorney and lawyer, it is clear to me what happened
    here.
        Roger Stone got special treatment because he was covering
    up the President's misconduct. An Attorney General made it
    possible. The double standard here is absolutely sinful.
        The president's long-time pal, if you are covering up his
    wrongdoing, you get special favors. If you are peacefully
    protesting brutality, you get tear gas.
        With that, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
        The Committee will stand in recess for five minutes.
        [Recess.]
        Chair Nadler. The Committee will come back to order.
        Mr. McClintock?
        Mr. McClintock. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        First, I want to protest the Chair's continued practice of
    denying seats on the dais to Members of the Committee who have
    cared enough to be personally present out of respect both to
    the Committee process and to the magnitude of the issues before
    us.
        This impedes and diminishes our work as Members of the
    committee, and it is an abrogation of Chair's responsibility to
    maintain fair and equal access to the committee's proceedings
    to all Members of the committee.
        Now, the business at hand. This morning an appeals court
    issued a highly unusual writ of mandamus ordering the trial
    court to dismiss the Flynn case.
        This came about because of overwhelming evidence illegally
    withheld by DOJ prosecutors for years that the prosecution was
    contrived, politically motivated, and directed not by career
    prosecutors but by political operatives at the very highest
    levels of our government.
        Mr. Flynn's attorney, Sidney Powell, told us she believes
    Mr. Flynn was targeted because he knew exactly the extent of
    corruption in our intelligence agencies and that his
    appointment as national security advisor was a direct threat to
    these forces within those agencies.
        Now, we give to our intelligence and justice agencies the
    most terrifying powers our government possess, the power to spy
    on American citizens, the power to strip people of their
    privacy, of their livelihoods, of their liberty, and to destroy
    their lives and even their families' lives.
        When these powers can be turned against our democratic
    principles and our republican institutions, we forfeit our
    Constitution and all the blessings of liberty that it protects.
        We now know that a cabal of political activists did exactly
    that. They took a document that they knew was false and they
    used it as a pretext to initiate an investigation, accusing a
    presidential candidate of colluding with a foreign power,
    leaked the existence of that investigation in an attempt to
    influence the 2016 presidential election, and having failed to
    do that, then to use it to undermine and obstruct the duly
    elected President of the United States.
        As the truth comes out, and we just saw a bombshell today
    in the Comey notes in the Flynn case, the other shoe is about
    to drop.
        As Tennyson said, ``the wheels of the gods grind slow, but
    they grind exceedingly fine.'' So, now we have a concerted
    effort to undermine these investigations by travesties like the
    proceedings today.
        Attorney General Barr has a responsibility to uphold the
    rule of law, the equal protection of our laws, and the
    impartial Administration of these laws. That is exactly what he
    is doing and that is exactly what makes him such a threat to
    those who abuse their powers and undermine the rule of law.
        Judge Mukasey, what happens if our justice and intelligence
    agencies can target rival candidates on specious grounds? If
    the incoming NSA director can be targeted at the highest levels
    of our government and set up to be maliciously prosecuted? If
    excessive sentences can be sought against politically
    disfavored defendants in direct contravention to sentencing
    guidelines?
        Judge, you have devoted your life to the equal protection
    of the law. What is your assessment of the events that I have
    referenced and where are we going if these bad actors can go
    unchallenged and unpunished?
        Mr. Mukasey. I think the matters you reference are a
    serious threat to the faith that people have to have in the
    functioning of their government in order for this country to
    continue to function.
        I was a great supporter and still am of the intelligence
    community. When people in that community abuse their power,
    that really shakes people's faith in the work product of that
    group and in their government, generally.
        Mr. McClintock. If you are talking to the American people
    right now, what would you tell them that they need to know?
        Mr. Mukasey. Well, how long do we have?
        I don't think that I am in a position to give a long
    discursive presentation on what they need to know. I think they
    are going to find out what they need to know in due course when
    investigations now underway run their course and we will find
    out what happened.
        Mr. McClintock. Are you concerned that there is a concerted
    effort to derail those investigations before they are
    completed, and the truth is out?
        Mr. Mukasey. Well, I don't know about derail because I
    don't think that John--
        Mr. McClintock. Well, these proceedings, for example.
        Mr. Mukasey. These proceedings could have the effect of
    tainting the Attorney General and, through him, John Durham.
    John Durham has been at this for a long time. He had the faith
    of three Attorney Generals at least: Janet Reno, me, my
    successor, and the Attorney General Barr. That is four.
        Mr. McClintock. Well, hopefully, the truth will come out
    and justice will be served. Thank you.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman's time has expired.
        Mr. Jeffries?
        Mr. Jeffries. Mr. Mukasey, I respect you, but these
    proceedings are consistent with the United States Constitution.
    The House is a separate and coequal branch of government.
        We don't work for Donald Trump or any other president. We
    work for the American people. We have a constitutional
    responsibility to serve as a check and balance on an out-of-
    control executive branch.
        The Attorney General and the Department of Justice under
    his leadership is out of control. The Attorney General works
    for the people. He is not the White House counsel. The Attorney
    General in the Department of Justice should be an agent of
    liberty and justice for all Americans regardless of political
    affiliation.
        Now, Mr. Zelinsky, you testified that in the many cases
    that you have been privileged to work on during your career you
    have never seen political influence play any role in
    prosecutorial decision-making with one exception, United States
    v. Roger Stone.
        Is that correct?
        Mr. Zelinsky. That is correct.
        Mr. Jeffries. You were the lead prosecutor on the Roger
    Stone case, which included a variety of different criminal
    charges such as lying to Congress and witness tampering. Is
    that right?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I was a lead prosecutor on the Roger Stone
    case.
        Mr. Jeffries. These were serious offenses. Is that correct?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Yes.
        Mr. Jeffries. They undermine the rule of law. True?
        Mr. Zelinsky. True.
        Mr. Jeffries. Now, your prosecution team was pressured by
    the highest levels of the Department of Justice to cut Roger
    Stone a break. Is that correct?
        Mr. Zelinsky. That is correct.
        Mr. Jeffries. Specifically, you were pressured to ask for a
    substantially lower sentence for Roger Stone than what you
    believe the facts justified. Is that true?
        Mr. Zelinsky. In addition to being pressured to misstate
    the guidelines, yes.
        Mr. Jeffries. You were also pressured to distort the events
    that transpired during the course of the trial. Is that right?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Both during the course of the events leading
    up to the trial of Mr. Stone's criminal conduct and some events
    in the trial itself, yes.
        Mr. Jeffries. Can you give us one example of the type of
    distortion that you were asked to engage in?
        Mr. Zelinsky. So, for example, involving Mr. Credico, Mr.
    Credico was the witness that was intimidated by Mr. Stone. He
    both testified at trial and submitted a letter after the fact.
        The letter seemed to indicate that he wasn't as worried
    about the witness intimidation, but he had previously testified
    before the Grand Jury and he also said at trial that he was
    concerned about what others might do as a result of Mr. Stone's
    actions.
        We were pressured to say that Mr. Credico had no concerns
    and expressed no worries as a result of Mr. Stone's obstructive
    conduct.
        Mr. Jeffries. Now, the reason you were pressured to modify
    your overall sentencing recommendation was because of Roger
    Stone's close relationship with President Donald Trump. Is that
    correct?
        Mr. Zelinsky. That is what I was told.
        Mr. Jeffries. You were even warned that if you did not toe
    the line and give Roger Stone special and preferential
    treatment you could, quote, ``lose your job,'' closed quote. Is
    that correct?
        Mr. Zelinsky. That is correct.
        Mr. Jeffries. You also told that the acting U.S. Attorney
    was giving Roger Stone favorable treatment because he was
    afraid of President Trump. Is that right?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Yes.
        Mr. Jeffries. Notwithstanding this pressure, you refused to
    cut Roger Stone a break and you filed your sentencing
    recommendation, which included seven to 10 years in a proposed
    prison sentence. Is that right?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I believe the upper end of the range, the
    guidelines that we filed, it was nine, Congressman.
        Mr. Jeffries. Seven to nine years.
        Just a few hours after your filing, the President tweeted
    that it was, quote, ``Horrible and very unfair situation.
    Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice,'' closed quote. Is
    that true?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Yes.
        Mr. Jeffries. The Department of Justice thereafter quickly
    filed a new sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone that
    reduced the number of years proposed that he would serve in
    prison for his crimes. Is that true?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Yes. It actually reduced the number of
    potential years to zero because it said that he should have a
    sentence of incarceration, but it provided no information as to
    what that sentence should be.
        Mr. Jeffries. Finally, the Department of Justice gave Roger
    Stone special treatment because of his close relationship with
    President Trump. Is that fair to say?
        Mr. Zelinsky. That is what I was told.
        Mr. Jeffries. Thank you. I yield back.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
        Mr. Gaetz?
        Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Roger Stone should be pardoned. I believe Roger Stone will
    be pardoned, and then this proceeding will look even more
    ridiculous than it does today.
        I fear that my Democrat colleagues tend to behave the worst
    when they are caught. Undoubtedly, the Obama Administration and
    their allies in the Deep State were caught entirely off guard
    by the election of President Trump.
        They believed that their smears and coup attempt against
    him would be like an insurance policy in the event that you die
    before you are 40. They believed he should lose 100,000,000 to
    zero.
        Then, of course, he won, and Democrats were caught yet
    again. This time the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign,
    colluding with Russia, utilizing a dossier that we now know had
    its subsources targeted by Russian intelligence.
        That is not a debate point. That is a finding by the
    inspector general. Now we see House Democrats caught yet again
    with a failed impeachment, with a lack of an agenda. As we sit
    here today, America's cities are burning.
        Our monuments are being desecrated. Our history is being,
    presumably, erased by people who are ashamed of the United
    States of America, and we have the audacity to have a meeting
    about the rule of law on a case that is already over, on an
    impeachment that has already failed, when there is real work
    for this Committee to do.
        It is a joke. I yield to Mr. Jordan.
        Mr. Jordan. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank him
    for his well-stated comments.
        Mr. Zelinsky, you took issue a few minutes ago when I said
    there is just one problem--the judge disagreed with you. I just
    want to read for the Committee for those viewing what Judge
    Berman Jackson said.
        She said, ``I agree with the defense and with the
    government's second memo.'' So, she didn't agree with your
    memo, Mr. Zelinsky. She agreed with the second supplemental
    memo and the defense team for Mr. Flynn.
        You also mentioned a few minutes ago that the supervisors--
    in your testimony you said that you were told at the time ``by
    my supervisors in the U.S. Attorney's Office,'' and I didn't
    get those names. So, if you could give me those names I would
    appreciate it, Mr. Zelinsky.
        Mr. Zelinsky. So, Congressman, I had earlier indicated that
    my supervisor, my immediate supervisor in the office, was the
    head of the Fraud and Public Corruption Section. You asked me
    for his name, and I told you it was J.P. Cooney.
        Mr. Jordan. Okay. Your testimony, it says ``my
    supervisors.'' It is plural. J.P. Cooney. Who else?
        Mr. Zelinsky. There was the first assistant in the U.S.
    Attorney's Office.
        Mr. Jordan. That is who?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Alessio. I will have to get back to you. Off
    the top of my head I confess, he is no longer the first
    assistant. So, his last name escapes me at this moment. I will
    tell you immediately when it comes to my mind. Then there is--
        Mr. Jordan. Something this important you can't even
    remember the person's last name who told you. Yet, you are here
    in front of the Committee as a so-called whistleblower where
    Chair of this Committee has said--indicated that he wants to
    impeach Bill Barr. I mean, this is amazing.
        Okay. How about on page 10 where you said, ``I was
    explicitly told that the motivation for changing the sentencing
    memo was political and because the U.S. Attorney was, quote,
    `afraid of the President.' '' Who explicitly told you that?
        Mr. Zelinsky. That was the supervisor of the Fraud and
    Public Corruption Section that I referenced earlier.
        Mr. Jordan. Mr. Cooney? Or a name you can't remember?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Mr. Cooney.
        Mr. Jordan. Okay. All right.
        Tell me about Joseph Mifsud.
        Mr. Zelinsky. Congressman, if I could for a second, I
    apologize that it took me a moment to come up with the name.
    Alessio--the first assistant's name is Evangelista.
        Mr. Jordan. Okay. So, tell me why the special counsel
    didn't charge Joseph Misfud with lying to the FBI. He lied
    three times.
        You charged everybody else. You charged Gates. You charged
    Flynn. You charged Stone. You charged 13 Russians no one had
    ever seen. We, obviously, know that the Flynn charge was wrong
    as evidenced by what happened today.
        Why didn't you charge Joseph Misfud, who lied to you guys
    back in February of 2017?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Congressman, I have been told by the
    Department of Justice that my testimony today should adhere to
    the four corners of the Special Counsel's Office report. There
    are privilege issues with going outside of that.
        I would be happy to consult with them, see if they will
    provide me the answer. Then yes, I will answer the question.
        Mr. Jordan. Well, you were awful quick just a few minutes
    ago. Here is the sentence: ``Manafort told the Special
    Counsel.'' So, you were fine talking to Democrats about what
    Manafort told the Special Counsel. I am asking you a simpler
    question. Joseph Misfud, the guy who first tells Papadopoulos
    that they have dirt on the Clintons.
        Papadopoulos then tells the foreign diplomat, who tells the
    FBI, and then we get this investigation that takes three years,
    and when you interview him, he lies three times. It is on page
    192 of the Mueller report. I am just asking why you guys didn't
    charge him.
        Mr. Zelinsky. Congressman, I want to address your issue as
    to why I discussed what Mr. Manafort said.
        Chair Nadler. The time of the gentleman--the time of the
    gentleman--the time of the gentleman has expired.
        Mr. Cicilline?
        Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. Elias, Mr. Ayer, and Mr. Zelinsky, you are courageous
    American heroes. Because of you and others like you, our
    Justice Department has been the envy of the world. Equal
    justice is a founding principle of our great country. Justice
    is done in every case without fear or favor, without party or
    politics, and we say in our Pledge of Allegiance liberty and
    justice for all. Those words mean something.
        In the face of staggering evidence of corruption, of
    misconduct, of lawlessness, we hear the same refrain from our
    colleagues on the other side of the aisle, ``You just don't
    like the President.''
        Of course, the answer is we love our country. We love the
    rule of law. We love our system of justice, and we love the
    integrity of the Department of Justice, and we are deeply
    troubled by the testimony that is being presented today and
    what it says about this attorney general and this president.
        So, Mr. Elias, as a Chair of the Antitrust Subcommittee, I
    am extremely troubled by the testimony that you have provided
    that confirms that the Trump Administration has weaponized the
    department's Antitrust Division to reward friends and punish
    enemies.
        For years public reporting has suggested that the Trump
    Administration has been wielding antitrust in this abusive way,
    from the AT&T Time-Warner merger, which the DOJ sued to block,
    reportedly at the President's direction, to the Sprint-T-Mobile
    merger and Disney Fox transactions, both of which the DOJ
    smoothly approved, despite serious anticompetitive concerns,
    allegedly due to personal ties that the CEOs and investors had
    to President Trump.
        So, Mr. Elias, I had to come back to the facts on why the
    investigation into four major automakers was ever open because
    there seemed to be no evidence to support it.
        In fact, at a Senate hearing last year, the Chief of the
    Antitrust Division told senators, and I quote, ``I have
    nothing'' when he was asked if he had any information of
    misconduct to justify this investigation of automakers.
        Your testimony today seems to confirm without question that
    there was, in fact, simply no basis to support the
    investigation.
        I wanted to be clear. Do you have any evidence that these
    automakers did anything wrong when they agreed to adhere to
    California's strict emission standards?
        Mr. Elias. I believe that--had clear legal defenses for
    what they were doing under well-established procedures.
        Mr. Cicilline. Was there any evidence that this
    investigation would in any way help the American people?
        Mr. Elias. I am not aware of any, no.
        Mr. Cicilline. There is evidence, in your mind, that this
    investigation was opened in bad faith to cater to the
    President's political whims. Isn't that correct?
        Mr. Elias. I think the coincidence of time between the
    President's tweets and the instruction the next day to open the
    investigation could lead to the inference that you are
    describing.
        Mr. Cicilline. Am I correct in saying that the
    investigation was ultimately closed without any evidence of
    wrongdoing found, correct?
        Mr. Elias. Correct.
        Mr. Cicilline. Now, your testimony makes clear to me that
    this investigation was meritless. It had nothing to do with
    protecting the American people or American consumers and
    everything to do with helping the President retaliate against
    automakers and support the President's feud against a specific
    state.
        What is worse, the Attorney General used taxpayer money to
    do this.
        Mr. Elias, you have described an entire division writing a
    memo, an all-staff meeting, weeks and weeks of work. Given this
    investigation was clearly not about protecting the interests of
    the American people, am I correct that it still required the
    expenditure of significant resources?
        Mr. Elias. It did require some staff time, some attorney
    time, and was a use of funds that did not ultimately yield a
    real violation.
        Mr. Cicilline. So, rather than pursuing meritless
    investigations in support of the President's personal vendetta,
    the resources could have been used and better spent elsewhere.
    Do you agree?
        Mr. Elias. I certainly agree, yes.
        Mr. Cicilline. Finally, Mr. Elias, what has been the effect
    on morale in your division, given that the Attorney General is
    pursuing investigations based on the President's tweets and not
    on what is best for the American people?
        Mr. Elias. Well, I do know that in the Federal Employment
    Viewpoint Survey, which surveys employees every year, the
    Antitrust Division is now ranked 404 out of 420.
        Mr. Cicilline. Thank you.
        Mr. Ayer, I would like to turn to you for a moment.
        The President is, of course, free to pursue an anti-
    environment agenda within the confines of the law. There is a
    line between the department prioritizing executive policies and
    prosecuting companies and individuals solely to retaliate
    against the President's perceived political enemies.
        Can you just please describe the difference between the
    department prioritizing an Administration's policies and what
    happened here, and what effect does it have on our justice
    system and democratic institutions if the President uses the
    department to attack those he disagrees with without legal
    cause?
        Mr. Ayer. The whole premise of a system of justice is that
    it will be brought to bear on the facts as they are and proceed
    pursuant to the best assessment that hard thinking and hard
    work can bring to it in terms of what action is appropriate.
        The citizens of the country need to have trust that things
    are being done in an evenhanded way for good reasons. The
    problem comes when there starts to be a widespread sense of
    concern or doubt that the government is actually taking an
    often-harsh action, sometimes punitive and criminal actions,
    other times civil enforcement actions or otherwise in civil
    cases acting in a way to help someone for special reasons that
    are totally unrelated to the public interest or any evenhanded
    considerations.
        Then trust breaks down, as it did after Watergate and that
    is not a place we want to be as a country because order starts
    to deteriorate.
        Chair Nadler. The time of the gentleman has expired.
        Mr. Cicilline. Mr. Chair, I have a unanimous consent
    request.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman will State his unanimous
    consent request.
        Mr. Cicilline. Thank you. Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous
    consent that this letter signed by over 1,100 former U.S.
    Attorneys and Justice Department officials, both Republicans
    and Democrats, which strongly condemns President Trump and
    Attorney General Barr's interference in the fair Administration
    of justice and calls on the Attorney General of the United
    States to resign, be made part of the record.
        Chair Nadler. Without objection.
        [The information follows:]

                          MR. CICILLINE FOR THE RECORD

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        Chair Nadler. Mr. Cline?
        Mr. Cline. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank our
    witnesses for being here.
        Mr. Zelinsky, I wish you were here in person, but I want to
    ask you in particular. You have already been asked about the 13
    and the 17 attorneys and the Special Counsel team registered
    Democrats.
        What was Andrew Weissmann's role in the Special Counsel
    investigation?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Andrew Weissmann was a senior assistant
    special counsel, I believe, was his title.
        Mr. Cline. Were you aware that Weissmann sent an email to
    then Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates saying he was, quote,
    ``So proud and in awe,'' end quote, of her after she disobeyed
    President Trump? Were you aware of that?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I am familiar with that press report, yes.
        Mr. Cline. Do you think this email compromised the
    appearance of an independent investigation?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I think that the attorneys in the Special
    Counsel's office did our job, and we did our job fairly and
    truthfully.
        Mr. Cline. So, you don't think that that email compromised
    the appearance of an independent investigation?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I think the investigation was independent and
    I am not able to comment beyond the confines of the report. I
    can tell you, Congressman, that we did our jobs and we followed
    the law.
        Mr. Cline. So, what did Special Counsel Mueller do after
    finding out that Weissmann emailed that he was so proud and in
    awe of Deputy Attorney General Yates? He didn't remove him,
    correct?
        I am sorry. Remove for--
        Mr. Zelinsky. I want to be very careful.
        Mr. Cline. No. Remove Weissmann.
        Mr. Zelinsky. I want to be very careful, Congressman, for
    the same reason that I referenced earlier.
        I have to go to the department to be able to talk about
    matters that are outside the scope of the Special Counsel
    office's report and receive their permission to do so.
        The government has--the Department of Justice has given me
    permission today to discuss matters related to the Stone
    sentencing. They have not given me permission to discuss
    internal matters in the Special Counsel's office that are
    outside the scope of the four corners of the Special Counsel
    office's report.
        If you would like, I can go to the department, and I will
    ask them for permission to answer your question.
        Mr. Cline. You have spoken to things that you have read in
    the press or seen in the public sphere, correct?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I have confirmed, yes.
        Mr. Cline. You have spoken to earlier today. So, are you
    aware that Weissmann agreed to host a fundraiser for candidate
    Joe Biden's victory fund?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I have read press reports to that effect.
        Mr. Cline. Okay. Are you aware of unauthorized press leaks
    coming out of the Special Counsel's office?
        Mr. Zelinsky. No.
        Mr. Cline. Okay. Has the Justice Department Office of
    Inspector General ever contacted you about unauthorized leaks
    to media?
        Mr. Zelinsky. They have not.
        Mr. Cline. Are you aware if Justice Department Office of
    Inspector General has contacted anyone else at the Special
    Counsel's office about unauthorized leaks to the media?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I am not.
        Mr. Cline. All right.
        With that, I am going to yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
        Mr. Jordan. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
        Mr. Mukasey, I want you to take a look at this chart up
    here because this is, in my mind, what politics at the Justice
    Department looks like.
        ``Hillary should win 100,000,000 to zero.''
        ``Trump is not ever going to become president, right?''
        That is from Lisa Page to Peter Strzok. Peter Strzok
    responds, ``No. No, he is not. We will stop it.''
        Now, this is not just any old person saying, ``We will stop
    it.'' This is Peter Strzok, deputy head of counterintelligence
    at the FBI and the guy who ran the investigation into Hillary
    Clinton, code name Mid-Year Exam, and ran the investigation
    Crossfire Hurricane into the Trump-Russia--so-called Trump-
    Russia collusion.
        That is what politics at the Justice Department looks like,
    not what the Democrats are serving up today.
        Your response, Mr. Mukasey?
        Mr. Mukasey. Well, that is not the only exchange, I think,
    that suggests politics. In fact, there is one that hasn't
    gotten very much attention that occurred on the night that Ted
    Cruz withdrew, and Donald Trump became the only candidate for
    the Republican nomination.
        There was an exchange where one said to the other, ``I
    can't believe this guy is going to be the nominee,'' and the
    response was, ``This raises the pressure to terminate MYE.''
    MYE was code for Mid-Year Exam.
        Mr. Jordan. Yeah, Mid-Year Exam.
        Mr. Mukasey. How the candidacy of Donald Trump could raise
    the pressure to terminate MYE has been something that has
    mystified me ever since I saw that.
        Mr. Jordan. Yeah. No kidding. It shouldn't matter who the
    candidate is for the other party determining what, how, when,
    and why you close an investigation, finishing an investigation,
    or what you do in an investigation.
        Mr. Mukasey. Right.
        Mr. Jordan. Yeah. Thank you very much.
        Yield back.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
        Mr. Swalwell?
        Mr. Swalwell. Mr. Zelinsky, on July 24 of last year,
    Special Counsel Mueller described in his testimony to this
    Committee that there were identified gaps in his investigation
    that he could not account for.
        Do you recall that testimony?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I do.
        Mr. Swalwell. That includes lies, deletion of text
    messages, and obstruction of justice. Is that right?
        Mr. Zelinsky. That is what the Special Counsel's office
    report says, yes.
        Mr. Swalwell. In our federal system, defendants are
    rewarded for accepting responsibility early in the proceedings
    for their sentence. Is that right?
        Mr. Zelinsky. That is correct.
        Mr. Swalwell. Did Mr. Stone go to a jury trial?
        Mr. Zelinsky. He did.
        Mr. Swalwell. Was he convicted at trial?
        Mr. Zelinsky. He was.
        Mr. Swalwell. Was he also found to have lied to the judge
    during pretrial proceedings?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Yes.
        Mr. Swalwell. You made a recommendation with your team as
    to what the sentence should be. The President tweeted, and the
    sentence was ultimately lowered. Is that correct?
        Mr. Zelinsky. That is accurate.
        Mr. Swalwell. So, we have a pattern here. President Trump
    tweets. Friends are protected. We saw that with National
    Security Advisor Flynn. He had secret conversations with the
    Russians before he was national security advisor, lied to Vice-
    President Pence, lied to the FBI, and twice admitted that he
    had lied, and pleaded guilty.
        Then comes Trump. He tweets repeatedly that this never
    should have happened and, Mr. Zelinsky, the Flynn case has been
    dropped by the recommendation of the DOJ. Is that right?
        Mr. Zelinsky. That is my understanding from what I have
    read in the press.
        Mr. Swalwell. Donald Trump does not only protect his
    friends, he actually punishes his enemies. Michael Cohen,
    former lawyer to President Trump, charged with counts of tax
    fraud and false statements.
        Pleads guilty early in the proceedings. Testifies to
    Congress, and nine days before his sentencing, Donald Trump
    tweets that Cohen wants zero days in prison. He should serve
    his full and complete sentence. Michael Cohen was sentenced to
    three years. Is that correct?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I don't remember Mr. Cohen's precise
    sentence. I have no reason to doubt what you are saying.
        Mr. Swalwell. So, Mr. Zelinsky, you are a career
    prosecutor. You just want to follow the evidence.
        How does it make you feel as a prosecutor and how does it
    make your colleagues feel when you see that your hard work and
    the evidence is being sidelined for political preferences?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Congressman, in the wake of the Stone
    sentencing motion, I heard from many Assistant United States
    Attorneys throughout the country, many of whom I did not know,
    about how disappointed they were with what had happened.
        Mr. Swalwell. Why were you disappointed?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I was disappointed because we took an oath to
    do our job, to follow the law, to follow the department's
    policy and to do what is right, and what happened here was
    wrong.
        Mr. Swalwell. Has Attorney General Barr ever publicly
    mischaracterized findings from the Mueller report?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I can speak to the Special Counsel's office's
    report. I have not been authorized by the department to
    characterize the Attorney General's comments on it.
        I can ask the Department of Justice whether or not I will
    be given authority to answer that question, and if permitted I
    will come back to you and answer.
        Mr. Swalwell. Mr. Zelinsky, you give us hope. You have come
    forward. You are currently working in the Administration, and
    you are doing it in the spirit of people like David Holmes, who
    testified during the impeachment inquiry, currently working as
    a political officer. People like Bill Taylor, people like
    Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, and, of course, former officials
    like Fiona Hill and Marie Yovanovitch.
        I hope that your courage today to talk about the political
    preferences shown in this prosecution inspires and begets
    future witnesses to come forward. You did, ultimately, withdraw
    from the case and leave the D.C. office. Can you tell us why
    you did that?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I did that because what had happened was
    wrong and I did not want to be a part of what had happened, and
    so I withdrew.
        Mr. Swalwell. Thank you.
        Mr. Chair, I would ask unanimous consent to enter into the
    record a bipartisan letter from 159 former Southern District of
    New York prosecutors expressing their extreme concern about the
    resignation/firing of Mr. Berman in the Southern District.
        I would yield back.
        Chair Nadler. Without objection.
        [The information follows:]

                          MR. SWALWELL FOR THE RECORD

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        Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
        Mr. Reschenthaler?
        Mr. Reschenthaler. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I want to
    thank all the witnesses for being here today, especially those
    who had the decency to do so in person. So, thank you.
        I am once again just absolutely disappointed but not
    surprised that my colleagues across the aisle are continuing to
    waste our time chasing ghosts rather than working for the
    American people.
        To assert that AG Barr, who is a serious law enforcement
    officer--he has a sterling reputation--to run around and say
    that he is interfering, he is running political interference
    for the President, it is absolutely laughable.
        AG Barr is cleaning up what are the ruins of the Obama/
    Biden DOJ. In particular, he is cleaning up from Jim Comey, who
    weaponized and politicized the FBI.
        If you doubt me, just look at the treatment of former
    National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Those were political
    abuses. That was political gamesmanship that was orchestrated
    by FBI Director Comey and what I call his merry band of Never
    Trumpers.
        Comey's FBI used the Logan Act. For those of you that don't
    know, the Logan Act is highly problematic and, frankly, it is
    likely unconstitutional.
        The Logan Act makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to engage
    in unauthorized foreign diplomacy and, despite this, the FBI
    used it, this archaic act, to set up General Flynn, even though
    they knew that he would never be charged with the obscure
    offense.
        In fact, since its enactment, the Logan Act has only been
    used twice to prosecute individuals, one in 1802 and one in
    1852, and both were acquitted.
        So, then why use this to go after Flynn? Well, according to
    the handwritten notes, the FBI's goal was, quote, ``Truth/
    admission or to get him to lie so we can prosecute him or get
    him fired,'' end quote.
        Around the same time the FBI was doodling these notes to
    set up Michael Flynn, around that same time former Secretary of
    State John Kerry was holding meetings with the Palestinian
    Authority. Senator Dianne Feinstein had dinner with the Iranian
    foreign minister. Yet, neither of those individuals were even
    questioned about Logan Act violations.
        So, clearly, the charges against Flynn were politically
    motivated, and I should note that just this morning an appeals
    court ruled that General Flynn--the appeals court ruled in
    General Flynn's favor, ordering the dismissal of that case.
        So, even if the DOJ recognized Logan Act's futility,
    informing the FBI that it was not in support of using the law
    to entrap--still use the law to entrap General Flynn.
        An FBI lawyer, in fact, testified before Congress and said
    the DOJ viewed the Logan Act as, quote, ``untested'' and that
    the Logan Act would leave the DOJ vulnerable to, quote,
    ``substantial litigation risk,'' unquote.
        That didn't stop Director Comey from using it to attempt to
    sabotage the Trump transition team.
        So, if my Democrat colleagues want to accuse someone of
    politicizing the DOJ, they should start with Director Comey.
        Mr. Zelinsky, what is your view of the Special Counsel's
    office toward the Logan Act?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Congressman, I am sorry to sound like a
    broken record, but I have been told by the Department of
    Justice that there are deliberative process concerns with the
    discussion in the Special Counsel's office and what transpired
    there outside the confines of the report.
        I am happy to discuss the Special Counsel's office's report
    and I am happy to go to the department and ask them--
        Mr. Reschenthaler. All right, Mr. Zelinsky. I am going to
    reclaim my time.
        How do you explain the discrepancy then between the
    treatment of General Flynn and that of Secretary Kerry and
    Senator Feinstein?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Congressman, I would need to consult with the
    Department of Justice before answering that question. If you
    would like I can ask--
        Mr. Reschenthaler. All right. I am going to reclaim my
    time.
        Let us just switch gears and talk about Mueller's probe. I
    was following it in the news and it seemed like there were a
    lot of leaks during that time.
        Did you talk to the press during the Mueller investigation?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Never.
        Mr. Reschenthaler. Do you know anybody that talked to the
    press?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I am sorry. I am not quite sure I heard your
    question. Do I know of any person that has ever talked to the
    press or do I know anyone in the Special Counsel's office?
        Mr. Reschenthaler. That was working on--yeah, that was
    working on the investigation. Did you know anybody on that team
    that was talking to the press?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Aside from our press relations professional,
    no.
        Mr. Reschenthaler. Judge, in your time at the DOJ, did you
    ever use the Logan Act?
        Mr. Mukasey. I am sorry?
        Mr. Reschenthaler. Did you ever use the Logan Act?
        Mr. Mukasey. No.
        Mr. Reschenthaler. Why not?
        Mr. Mukasey. I was never aware of any situation that could
    conceivably have been covered by it and had I been, I would
    have been hesitant to use it because, number one, I believe it
    is unconstitutional.
        Mr. Reschenthaler. Thank you.
        Mr. Chair, I yield my time. My time has expired.
        Chair Nadler. The time of the gentleman has expired.
        Mr. Lieu?
        Mr. Lieu. Thank you, Chair Nadler.
        Let me set context for why we are even here today. We are
    here because the Russians sweepingly and systematically hacked
    our elections in 2016. Roger Stone coordinated with Wikileaks,
    who had the emails that Russian hackers stole from the Hillary
    Clinton campaign.
        Roger Stone also coordinated with Members of the Trump
    campaign and spoke to Donald Trump himself. The Trump campaign
    embraced the stolen emails, planned their campaign messaging
    based on the Russian hack, and then, after Roger Stone was
    convicted of multiple crimes, Bill Barr's Department of Justice
    intervened to lower the sentencing recommendation.
        That is a perversion of justice. I am a former prosecutor,
    and it is clear to me that the only reason we are able to take
    the extraordinary step of locking people in prison is because
    the people believe our processes are fair and based on the
    facts.
        One of the greatest dangers to democracy is when the people
    start believing that prosecutions are tainted based on who the
    defendant happens to know and, unfortunately, under Bill Barr's
    Department of Justice, friends of Donald Trump get breaks and
    special favors from the Department of Justice that no ordinary
    American could ever get.
        So, my questions are for Mr. Zelinsky.
        Mr. Zelinsky, before you worked at the Department of
    Justice you clerked for Judge Thomas Griffith of the D.C.
    Circuit. He was nominated by a Republican president, correct?
        Mr. Zelinsky. That is correct. He was nominated by
    President George W. Bush.
        Mr. Lieu. Then you clerked also for Chief Justice Anthony
    Kennedy, who also was nominated by a Republican president,
    correct?
        Mr. Zelinsky. President Reagan. That is correct.
        Mr. Lieu. Before you could become a United States Attorney,
    you had to take an oath and that oath was to the United States
    Constitution, correct?
        Mr. Zelinsky. When I became an Assistant United States
    Attorney, as required by law I took that oath. I actually had
    to take a similar oath on a number of occasions for various
    federal jobs that I have held, including the clerkships you
    just mentioned, Congressman.
        Mr. Lieu. So, your client is not Donald Trump or Bill Barr.
    It is the Constitution of the United States and the American
    people. Isn't that right?
        Mr. Zelinsky. That is correct.
        Mr. Lieu. On behalf of the American people, you and other
    career prosecutors submitted a sentencing memo of seven to nine
    years for Roger Stone. Is that right?
        Mr. Zelinsky. That accurately describes the sentencing
    memorandum, yes.
        Mr. Lieu. When Judge Jackson reviewed that recommendation,
    did she think it was supported by the record?
        Mr. Zelinsky. She did. She said that the sentencing memo
    that we had filed complied with all law, relevant DOJ policy
    and practice, and was supported by the record.
        Mr. Lieu. After you submitted that sentencing
    recommendation, the President of the United States went nuts
    and said it was horrible, unfair, and then another memo was
    submitted by people above you.
        Were you told why they submitted that memo of a lower
    sentencing recommendation?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I was told that the U.S. Attorney was taking
    action because he was afraid of the President. As I discussed,
    I was told that earlier. Then I was told that there was heavy
    political pressure from the highest levels of the Department of
    Justice to cut Roger Stone a break.
        Mr. Lieu. Did any career line Assistant U.S. Attorney sign
    that lower sentencing recommendation?
        Mr. Zelinsky. None.
        Mr. Lieu. In the memo you had submitted initially, were you
    asked to remove portions about Roger Stone's misconduct?
        Mr. Zelinsky. We were.
        Mr. Lieu. Is that unusual?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I have never had it before in my experience.
        Mr. Lieu. Okay. Now, Mr. Mukasey has said that an attorney
    general can certainly ask for a sentence below the sentencing
    guidelines.
        To be clear, that is not your problem with what happened.
    It is not that something was asked below the sentencing
    guidelines.
        It was the process, right, where the reason it was done was
    because Roger Stone was a friend of Donald Trump, and the
    acting U.S. Attorney was scared of the President. Isn't that
    right?
        Mr. Zelinsky. That is one of the problems. There were also
    flaws in the sentencing--second sentencing memorandum that I
    believe should not have been submitted as well besides the
    recommendation itself.
        Mr. Lieu. Do you believe those flaws were done because
    Roger Stone is a friend of Donald Trump?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I was told that the acting United States
    Attorney was taking the actions that he was because he was
    afraid of Donald Trump.
        I was not told why the second sentencing memorandum was
    done the way it was because by the time it was filed, I had
    withdrawn from the office and I was not given the ability to
    review the materials nor was I told who was writing it.
        Mr. Lieu. Thank you.
        My last question, ``In United States of America we do not
    prosecute people because of their politics.'' That is what you
    wrote. You also wrote, ``And we don't cut them a break because
    of their politics either.''
        Was Roger Stone cut a break because of his connection to
    Donald Trump?
        Mr. Zelinsky. That is what I was told and that is what
    appears to have happened, to me.
        Mr. Lieu. Thank you, and I yield back.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
        Mr. Raskin?
        [No response.]
        Chair Nadler. Mr. Raskin?
        [Pause.]
        Chair Nadler. Unmute your microphone.
        [Pause.]
        Chair Nadler. Okay. Ms. Jayapal?
        Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. Zelinsky, let us make this very simple for the American
    people. You testified today that you were told that the
    motivation for lessening the sentence for Roger Stone, the
    President's long-time friend, was because the U.S. Attorney was
    afraid of President Trump.
        Is that correct?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Correct, among other things.
        Ms. Jayapal. In other words, sir, the Justice Department
    leadership based a sentencing recommendation not on the rule of
    law, not based on whether Roger Stone deserved the recommended
    sentence, but simply to appease the President.
        Is that right?
        Mr. Zelinsky. That is what I was told.
        Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Zelinsky.
        I can see why the U.S. Attorney was afraid to go against
    the President. U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said that his
    investigations, including the President's close inner circle,
    would continue without fear or favor, and now he is gone.
        The rules are clear. The rules of this President and
    Attorney General Barr are clear--that is, give the President's
    friends special treatment, keep your job. Dare to pursue
    justice, dare to follow the law, dare to hold the President's
    friends accountable and you will be removed.
        Mr. Zelinsky, you went ahead with your sentencing
    recommendations in spite of these pressures and threats. Can
    you tell us why?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Because it was the right thing to do.
        Ms. Jayapal. You were there to do the right thing, and I
    appreciate that and your coming forward to discuss this.
        Mr. Elias, I would like to switch topics and go back to the
    department's investigation of at least 10 cannabis companies to
    make sure we understand why you consider these to be sham
    investigations, investigations predicated on the personal
    interests of the Attorney General and the President rather than
    the facts or a desire to protect American consumers.
        Approximately how many DOJ staff were pulled to work on
    these sham investigations?
        Mr. Elias. Congresswoman, there were dozens of staff--
    attorneys, paralegals, economists, and others who worked on
    these various cases.
        Ms. Jayapal. These companies produced 1.3 million documents
    from the files of 40 employees at the DOJ's request. Is that
    correct?
        Mr. Elias. That was just from the first of the 10 mergers,
    yes.
        Ms. Jayapal. So, potentially, 10 times that if the same
    numbers were applied.
        When the DOJ received these documents, is there any
    evidence that the entirety of these documents were even
    reviewed?
        Mr. Elias. I think a very small number of the documents
    were reviewed.
        Ms. Jayapal. A very small number. In one of the reviews
    some documents were never even uploaded. Is that correct?
        Mr. Elias. They were uploaded after the closing process had
    been initiated as if they were irrelevant to the investigation
    and its process.
        Ms. Jayapal. So, there were requested enormous resources.
    Taxpayer dollars were used. These documents were never really
    looked at. They weren't relevant to the investigations.
        So, to be clear, at Attorney General Barr's direction, the
    department expends countless taxpayer resources to force
    companies to ultimately produce millions of pages of evidence
    and then doesn't even look at or upload some of that evidence
    before admitting there is a violation.
        Now, Mr. Elias, given your experience in public service,
    have you ever seen anything this extreme, using taxpayer
    dollars to conduct an investigation over the course of months
    on an entire industry and not even uploading evidence before
    admitting that there is no violation?
        Mr. Elias. In my experience, which includes 14 years at the
    Justice Department at many different levels of the Antitrust
    Division, no, I have never seen anything like that.
        Ms. Jayapal. Can you explain to the American people why is
    that so concerning?
        Mr. Elias. It is concerning because the investigations and
    the work of the Antitrust Division need to be done in good
    faith.
        They need to be done evenhandedly both for the sake of
    everybody involved and for the sake of the public's perception
    of the rule of law and that the Justice Department is being
    above board with everything calling balls and strikes as they
    truly are.
        So, for it to disregard the usual standards in the law on
    what counts for an antitrust investigation is improper and an
    abuse.
        Ms. Jayapal. Mr. Elias, you are just saying that the
    Justice Department should be pursuing justice.
        Mr. Elias. Yes.
        Ms. Jayapal. I want to thank you for your bravery in coming
    here today.
        We all have to ask ourselves what this means for what we do
    not even know. This is a pattern that has been consistent.
        Bill Barr lied to the American people about the Mueller
    report. He ordered the military to tear gas peaceful protestors
    just so the President could have a photo-op and now is using
    the power of the Justice Department for corrupt purposes in
    these instances that we are investigating today.
        If he is doing all these things, what else is happening
    that we don't even know about? Bill Barr appears to be a
    henchman for the President's likes and dislikes, not the
    Attorney General of the United States pursuing equal justice
    under the law.
        He has abandoned his responsibility to uphold the
    Constitution. He is no longer working for the American people,
    and we must stop that.
        Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I yield back.
        Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
        Mr. Raskin?
        [No response.]
        Chair Nadler. Okay. Ms. Demings?
        Ms. Demings. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. Chair, I care about the rule of law. I care about the
    oath of office that I have taken and that we have all taken,
    and what it means to take that oath of office to heart.
        Mr. Zelinsky, first, congratulations on the birth of your
    child. I also want to thank you for being a nonpartisan career
    prosecutor who treats people equally and fairly.
        Now, I believe that those would be welcome words,
    especially during this time in our Nation when we are seeing
    civil unrest in all 50 states, a Justice Department that treats
    people equally and fairly.
        We know that most people in our country don't have a fixer
    with the title Attorney General.
        Mr. Zelinsky, in your testimony, I think it is so important
    that we keep our eye on the ball. We have heard so many
    distractions here today, but I am committed to keeping my eye
    on the ball, to work hard to make sure that we do create a more
    perfect system of justice.
        Mr. Zelinsky, in your testimony you stated that political
    pressure resulted in the virtually unprecedented decision to
    override the original sentencing recommendation and the filling
    of a new sentencing memorandum that included statements and
    assertions at odds with the record and contrary to the
    Department of Justice policy.
        You went on to say that in the Fraud and Public Corruption
    Section of the United States Attorney's Office for the District
    of Columbia, you could never recall--you couldn't even recall a
    case where the government did not seek a guideline sentence
    after trial.
        Mr. Zelinsky, is that correct?
        Mr. Zelinsky. That is correct. Nor could anyone else in the
    U.S. Attorney's Office recall such a situation.
        Ms. Demings. So, to be clear, that you could not recall it
    and nor could anybody else in that office recall it either. Is
    that what you just said?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Yes.
        Ms. Demings. Thank you, Mr. Zelinsky.
        Mr. Mukasey, during your confirmation hearing you said, and
    I appreciate these words, quote ``I served in the department
    and the U.S. Attorney's Office in SDNY 35 years ago. I was
    never asked what my politics were. I did not know the politics
    of the men and women there and still do not. And it did not
    matter. It had nothing to do with our job, nothing to do with
    the way we did it and could not have anything to do with the--
    and cannot have anything to do with the jobs of the people in
    the Justice Department today.''
        As we find ourselves in this very critical moment, Mr.
    Mukasey, do you stand by your statement?
        Mr. Mukasey. I do.
        Ms. Demings. Could you please explain to me why you do not
    feel that the Roger Stone case has anything--the decisions that
    have been made in that case have nothing to do with politics
    and have nothing to--do not compromise your position here today
    and the statement that you made during your confirmation?
        Mr. Mukasey. Because the initial sentencing recommendation
    was wildly inappropriate, notwithstanding that it resulted from
    a mechanical application of the guidelines.
        The only person who determined the sentence in that case
    was the judge. She could have sentenced the defendant to any
    term of imprisonment or no term of imprisonment.
        She chose to sentence him to a term of 40 months, which was
    within the second recommendation. That second recommendation
    changed nothing so far as the bottom-line result because the
    judge is the only person who determines the sentence.
        Ms. Demings. Do you believe that the President nor the
    Attorney General, who has been acting more like the President's
    personal bodyguard and his fixer, have not engaged in politics
    as it pertains to the President's friends?
        Mr. Mukasey. I can't speak for the President. The President
    is, by definition, a political--
        Ms. Demings. Based on your professional decision, political
    or professional experience, do you believe the President has
    engaged in a political way as it pertains to sentences or what
    happens to his friends?
        Mr. Mukasey. The Attorney General himself criticized the
    President for tweets that he--
        Ms. Demings. So, that is a yes?
        Mr. Mukasey. It is a maybe. Go ahead.
        Ms. Demings. Do you believe the Attorney General has
    engaged in politics in carrying out the President's wishes?
        Mr. Mukasey. Short answer is no.
        Ms. Demings. Mr. Chair, I yield back. Thank you very much.
        Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
        Mr. Raskin?
        Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        This is the most devastating testimony I have ever seen, an
    Attorney General of the United States corrupting the rule of
    law in pursuit of a political agenda for the President of the
    United States.
        All of America can right now see exactly what is going on.
    The Attorney General, acting not as a champion of the rule of
    law or the Constitution but, rather, as a sycophant and a
    consigliere for Donald Trump, has decided to go out and
    undermine cases, derail cases, and kill cases that affect
    Donald Trump's chosen ones, despite overwhelming evidence
    against them and despite guilty pleas by some of them.
        Now, it is going to take us a long time to sort out the
    full litany of unregistered foreign agents and liars and felons
    and frauds who have gotten a ``get out of jail free'' card by
    Attorney General William Barr at the behest of Donald Trump,
    and we should track all of that down.
        More immediately, America faces two problems where Attorney
    General Barr is, again, threatening the rule of law and
    justice, and one is the public health response to the pandemic,
    which has now cost more than 120,000 Americans their lives, and
    the other is the fall election, which is the people's
    opportunity to speak if allowed to do so without election
    interference by foreign powers or by the government of the
    United States itself in an effort to intimidate and repress the
    vote.
        So, I want to come to Mr. Ayer. In your testimony, you
    testified that Attorney General Barr has worked to, quote,
    ``create an authoritarian president,'' and I wrote down some of
    your basic points here.
        We, obviously, don't have time to get into all of them. You
    say he undermined the work of independent fact finders, such as
    the FBI. He ignored and trampled Congress's powers under the
    appropriations clause.
        He categorically stonewalled congressional oversight and
    State criminal subpoenas. He attacked and undermined the
    inspectors general. He used political cronies to review and
    decide issues of special interest to the President.
        He reversed government positions in the Stone and Flynn
    prosecutions. He used the DOJ as a tool of the President's
    reelection campaign. He directed law enforcement forces to
    violate the First amendment rights of peaceful protestors in
    Lafayette Square, and on and on, all the way to sacking
    Geoffrey Berman just a day or two ago.
        Among these things you mentioned almost in passing, that
    the Attorney General had tried to provide an echo to the
    President by likening public health orders by legitimate
    politically elected authorities in America, governors and
    mayors, to house arrest, and he said that he would work to
    jawbone the governors into rolling back public health orders
    put in place as the only mechanism we have to try to lower the
    death count and control this out of control pandemic, which is
    now ravaging Florida, Texas, South Carolina, Louisiana,
    Arkansas, large areas of the South and the West right now.
        What is the problem with the Attorney General deciding he
    wants to jawbone the governors and likening their policies to
    house arrest, which we all know is completely phony?
        Mr. Ayer. Thank you for that.
        Chair Nadler. Your microphone, sir.
        Mr. Ayer. The whole issue of how you deal with public
    health problems, obviously, there is a role for the Federal
    Government and one that has not been performed terribly well in
    terms of coordinating overall supplies.
        The basic decision-making with regard to how you are going
    to make the particular decisions of what people need to do,
    they are very local and they are very unique to local areas.
        The judgments I think everybody recognizes, basically, are
    to be made at the State and the local level in terms of when to
    open, how much, in what ways, et cetera.
        What appears to have happened here, and it didn't just
    happen once, it appears to have happened several times--is that
    Mr. Barr, and he really does appear to be echoing statements
    that the President has periodically tweeted and made about
    opening up.
        Obviously, the President has been very intense about
    wanting to get everything opened up. So, Barr has echoed that
    and essentially threatened--he has threatened to jawbone.
        He has also, in connection with the question about churches
    and whether churches are going to be treated in a certain way
    and are they somehow being treated less favorably than others,
    they have actually gone to court in some of those instances.
        Now, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge a couple of
    weeks ago regarding one restriction on a church in California,
    and I have not heard anything about the Justice Department
    actually filing anything in connection with opening up issues
    concerning churches.
        He continues to talk about the need to open up.
    Fundamentally, it is ironic to have a Republican Administration
    intruding so far into such a sensitive core local government,
    State government, question as local public health regulations
    dealing with the particularities of a case.
        So, that is really--
        Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Ayer.
        I want to ask you one other question, if I might, which is
    simply he has also provided an echo for the President, who has
    voted himself by mail in New York and in Florida and whose
    party encourages its Members to go out and vote by mail, but he
    has echoed the President in saying there is something wrong
    with voting by mail and he has alleged that voting by mail
    makes us vulnerable to foreign influence by counterfeit
    ballots.
        Is that an appropriate role for the Attorney General of the
    United States?
        Mr. Ayer. Well, I think it is not and especially it is not
    because it appears to be something that there is absolutely no
    truth in at all.
        There are five states that do nothing but vote by mail and
    every other State--I think virtually every other State uses
    vote by mail somewhat substantially.
        So, the idea that we are going to throw cold water on the
    notion that we should use vote by mail it is just disreputable,
    and it is entirely inappropriate. It really isn't his job
    anyway. If there were some law enforcement function, there it
    might be.
        Basically, he is just echoing the President, which is
    something he does more and more, and, frankly, my worry is that
    he is going to do it more and more in the weeks and months
    ahead as we get closer to the election.
        Mr. Raskin. Do you think he is acting more like a campaign
    operative than like the Attorney General of the United States?
        Mr. Ayer. Well, as I said in my opening statement, I think
    he is, in fact, acting as an advocate for whatever fantasies
    the President wants to advance, one of which is this Obamagate
    nonsense that the Members of this Committee spew out as well,
    and he is now doing this.
        The worst thing about it is he is doing it with the
    backdrop of an investigation which he has in his pocket, and
    nobody knows what that investigation is supposedly going to
    come up with.
        He is hinting that he has terribly incriminating things
    that he has found, and no one else is in a position to say he
    is wrong. He is wrong.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman's time has expired.
        Ms. Lesko?
        Ms. Lesko. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I apologize. I was in
    the Rules Committee hearing and I am here physically. So,
    unlike Members that are on both committees that are virtual, I
    have to actually physically come down here.
        Just from the short time I have been here, boy, it sure
    does sound like this is political speech going on here, but I
    yield my time to Mr. Jordan, the rest, the balance of my time.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Jordan. I thank the gentlelady for yielding.
        Mr. Mukasey, I want to read a statement to you from January
    of 2017 and get your response to it. It says, well I am going
    to ask you a couple of questions about it.
        What is our goal: Truth, admission, or to get him to lie so
    we can prosecute him or get him fired?
        First, Mr. Mukasey, do you happen to know who wrote that?
        Mr. Mukasey. The name escapes me at the moment, but it was
    a senior FBI official.
        Mr. Jordan. Yeah, right. The director of FBI's
    Counterintelligence Division, Mr. Priestap, wrote that wrote
    this just prior to the interview of General Flynn and what I
    want to know is, is that the kind of motivation that typically
    exists with investigators? Is their goal to get someone fired,
    to prosecute them? I thought the goal was to get to the truth.
        Mr. Mukasey. That is supposed to be the goal.
        Mr. Jordan. Do you have concerns about that, Mr. Ayer just
    said it was nonsense to be concerned about things like this. I
    think the term he used was, we were spewing out things that
    were nonsense.
        This doesn't seem to me to be nonsense to be concerned
    about a senior official at the Justice Department, an important
    player in the investigation that was going on at the time that
    Peter Strzok was leading, it doesn't seem to me to be nonsense.
        Mr. Mukasey. You're asking me whether I agree?
        Mr. Jordan. I am asking you to comment. Go right ahead.
        Mr. Mukasey. Okay. If that wasn't the--the point is that
    wasn't an isolated example; it was one example among many and
    that phenomenon of it being one among many, it is the many
    parts that I think is the real concern.
        Mr. Jordan. Yeah, the many parts. Couple that with the
    statements we just talked about a few minutes ago that I asked
    you about, that the two people in the FBI working under Mr.
    Priestap, one of them under Mr. Priestap, one under from Mr.
    McCabe, the statements they had relative to the investigation,
    two important investigations. So, it is the combination of all
    of that.
        How about this fact that 38 people unmasked Michael Flynn's
    name 49 times? Just the volume and the number of different
    people, does that concern you, Mr. Mukasey?
        Mr. Mukasey. Well, people who unmask are supposed to State
    the reasons and I don't know what reasons they stated, but the
    sheer number is, would be of some interest.
        Mr. Jordan. In any of your time in working in government,
    did you ever see anything like that in your experience?
        Mr. Mukasey. I did not. I was actually, truthfully not
    involved in unmasking decisions or discussions, so I can't say
    whether it, whether and to what extent it happened, but it's
    supposed to happen only when it's necessary.
        Mr. Jordan. Your first impression as a former Attorney
    General of the United States, you see 49 different times, 38
    people in a short time span. You get 6 people at Treasury, for
    goodness' sake, 6 people at Treasury Department unmasking
    Michael Flynn's name, not just Clapper, Comey, Brennan, Biden,
    not just those individuals.
        Mr. Mukasey. I want to know more about what the nature of
    their interest is and why it was necessary to disclose the
    identity of a U.S. citizen.
        Mr. Jordan. I do, too. I do, too.
        Mr. Elias, have you ever disclosed internal Department of
    Justice documents, including documents that might be privileged
    or confidential to anyone outside of the department?
        Mr. Elias. I don't believe I have done that. I did produce
    my Inspector General complaint to this Committee in response to
    its subpoena to appear here today, but that was a document that
    was my words and not--
        Mr. Jordan. Why the hesitation? I mean it is fine if you
    have got the complaint relative to a so-called whistleblower,
    but what, is there a hesitation because there are other
    documents you have disclosed?
        Mr. Elias. I am hesitating only because I want to be
    absolutely sure that I am being truthful, and I cannot--
        Mr. Jordan. Did you give any documents to United States
    senators, Democrat senators?
        Mr. Elias. I am fairly confident that I have not done, that
    other than my whistleblower complaint. I don't believe that
    I've given other, I don't believe I've given internal documents
    to--
        Mr. Jordan. Have you ever worked at the White House?
        Mr. Elias. I was on detail as a career Justice Department
    Attorney to the White House.
        Mr. Jordan. What years? What time frame?
        Mr. Elias. It was 2015, the first half of 2015.
        Mr. Jordan. Okay.
        Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        I yield back.
        Chair Nadler. Does the gentleman yield?
        Mr. Jordan. Oh, I have unanimous consent. I apologize, Mr.
    Chair.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
        Mr. Correa?
        Mr. Jordan. Can I do a unanimous consent?
        Chair Nadler. Oh, the gentleman will State his unanimous
    consent letter.
        Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        I have a letter from the Justice Department to Senator
    Whitehouse from Assistant Attorney General Boyd, dated June
    19th, 2020.
        Chair Nadler. Without objection.
        [The information follows:]

                           MR. JORDAN FOR THE RECORD

    =======================================================================

        Chair Nadler. Ms. Scanlon?
        Ms. Scanlon. Thank you.
        Mr. Elias, we have talked a lot about the politicization of
    the DOJ to serve the President's interests instead of--
        Chair Nadler. Your microphone?
        Ms. Scanlon. Oh, I am sorry. I am just not close enough.
        You testified you believe the DOJ initiated certain
    investigations of the cannabis in California car industries
    because those industries were unpopular with the Attorney
    General Barr and the President and that you believed that this
    improper targeting undermines the public's perception of the
    DOJ as a fair administrator of justice.
        So, this is essentially an allegation that instead of using
    the Justice Department to protect the rule of law and the
    American people, the Attorney General is using the DOJ to
    pursue the political whims of the President and expending
    public resources to retaliate against the President's enemies.
        Did you try to report those concerns to anyone and, if so,
    what happened?
        Mr. Elias. So, I've reported those concerns to the Office
    of Special Counsel, the Office of the Inspector General, and to
    Congress and there was a referral by the Office of Special
    Counsel to the Department. They found the initial review of the
    facts to be concerning enough that they thought the agency
    should investigate.
        I should clarify, as a technical matter, there's a second
    whistleblower here and it was her complaint that came in just
    before mine that was referred, and the Department sent it to
    the Office of Professional Responsibility which conducted a
    review and it came back with a report that, to my knowledge,
    was first circulated last night that I have read and that had a
    number of issues that I was questioned about by Mr. Collins,
    Representative Collins earlier.
        What's curious about that report is it says that even if
    the allegations are true, even if these investigations were
    motivated by animus and not by bona fide law enforcement
    reasons, then there's still no problem, that that's not a
    violation of rules or regulations. That's very concerning to me
    because it seems so self-evident that if your sole motivation
    is animosity, that is impermissible.
        If there is no Rule or regulation, then there's sort of one
    missing because it's obviously wrong.
        Ms. Scanlon. So, essentially, the investigation that
    occurred didn't address your underlying complaint, which was
    that these investigations were politically motivated; it just
    found that no other laws were violated?
        Mr. Elias. I think that's more or less correct, but it did
    say that even assuming they were politically motivated, that
    that's not a problem, which is perplexing to me coming from the
    Office of Professional Responsibility.
        Ms. Scanlon. So, it is kind of like the argument that if
    the President has the power to pardon someone, it doesn't
    matter why he has pardoning someone, even if it is an improper
    use of that power.
        Mr. Elias. I think that's a great analogy.
        Ms. Scanlon. Thank you.
        Mr. Zelinsky, you testified about another way that
    President Trump had weaponized the Department of Justice at the
    expense of Americans by using the Attorney General to help save
    his friends from punishment. You referred specifically to the
    case of Roger Stone, who was convicted on 7 counts of
    obstructing justice, making false statements to investigators,
    and tampering with witnesses.
        When you reported your concerns that the Department was
    letting the President's political considerations interfere in
    the Stone sentencing, what were you told?
        Mr. Zelinsky. As I said in my statement, we reported our
    concerns on multiple occasions, but we were told that we could
    be fired if we didn't go along with it and that we were told
    that this is not the hill to die on.
        Ms. Scanlon. Okay. Our U.S. Attorneys take an oath to
    protect and defend the Constitution and to prosecute without
    fear or favor, but we have been hearing testimony about
    attorneys like Mr. Zelinsky and others resigning, rather than
    violate those principles. I think it is important that the
    American public know that this is not normal.
        Mr. Ayer, you have served in Democratic and Republican
    Administrations. Have you ever seen this many career officials
    express alarm about the politicization of the Department with
    no actions taken? Why is this such a problem?
        Mr. Ayer. I have not ever seen the number of letters that
    have been filed by--and I think we're up, we're certainly in
    the thousands now of people protesting--I've never seen
    anything remotely like it in my entire life. That's one of the
    reasons, that's one measure, it's only one. It's one of the
    reasons I say, I think, I've never in my lifetime been in as
    great of fear for the future of our rule of law as I am now
    because it is happening across the board in a lot of areas and
    the people who know that system and are part of it realize how
    serious this problem is.
        Ms. Scanlon. I mean, I think it is worth noting that where
    political corruption of the Department of Justice is coming
    from the top, from the President and the Attorney General, that
    resignation is the only way that career attorneys can ring the
    alarm bells and we have to them.
        I yield back.
        Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
        Mr. Correa?
        Ms. Garcia?
        Ms. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        The Flynn and Stone case both seem to follow a pattern.
    Attorney General Barr gives special treatment to the
    President's friends who break the law.
        Mr. Zelinsky, your colleague Jonathan Kravis, who was also
    assigned to the Roger Stone case, resigned from the Department
    after 10 years because he said, quote, ``he believed that the
    Department had abandoned its responsibility to do justice in
    the Roger Stone case.''
        Mr. Zelinsky, do you agree with that assessment?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I do.
        Ms. Garcia. So, Mr. Kravis wrote that after the Stone case,
    the Department did the same thing with Michael Flynn; again,
    putting, quote, ``political patronage that hindered the
    Department's commitment to the rule of law.''
        Mr. Kravis went on to say that prosecutors are not trained
    to comment on the sentencing, and it was, quote, ``not easy for
    him to do so.''
        You also have said it pains you to have to describe these
    events. As a former judge, I can sympathize. Public servants
    are trained not to speak out, to let investigations and facts
    speak for themselves, but the Department's actions were so
    shocking, such an affront to impartial justice that all of you
    have been brave enough to come forward and we thank you.
        Mr. Kravis explained why, because if Barr is able to get
    away with all of this, it will, quote, ``have lasting damage to
    our institutions.''
        I would like to read a copy of his op-ed, which, Mr. Chair,
    I would like unanimous consent to enter into the record.
        [The information follows:]

                           MS. GARCIA FOR THE RECORD

    =======================================================================
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Ms. Garcia. He said in his op-ed that he found it so
    compelling that it echoes the testimony today, Mr. Zelinsky. He
    said, and I quote, ``In the Stone and Flynn cases, the
    Department undercut the work of career employees to protect an
    ally of the President, an abdication of the commitment to equal
    justice under the law.''
        Prosecutors must make decisions based on facts and law, not
    on the defendant's political connections; in other words, when
    the Justice Department makes decisions based not on facts and
    law, but a defendant's political connections, it betrays our
    system of justice.
        Mr. Zelinsky, do you agree with this assessment?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I agree with the assessment about what the
    Government needs to do, what it should do, and the acts of--I
    just want to be very clear, Congresswoman, I am not authorized
    to, nor do I seek to comment on the developments in the Flynn
    case.
        Ms. Garcia. Thank you.
        Mr. Elias, do you agree with the assessment?
        Mr. Elias. Would you repeat the question?
        Ms. Garcia. The question is: In the op-ed, Mr. Kravis says
    that in the Stone and Flynn cases, the Department undercut the
    work of career employees to protect an ally of the President,
    an abdication of the commitment to equal justice under the law.
    Prosecutors must make decisions based on facts and law, not on
    the defendant's political connections.
        So, do you agree with that assessment?
        Mr. Elias. I think with the general proposition that
    prosecutors have to make their cases based on their assessments
    of the facts and the law and not personal connections, yes, I
    agree with that.
        Ms. Garcia. Okay. Mr. Ayer, do you agree with that
    assessment?
        Mr. Ayer. Yes, I do.
        Ms. Garcia. Well, I do, as well, and that is, and what is
    worse is that what Attorney General Barr did the prosecutors
    who were brave enough to speak out, he publicly condemned them,
    despite knowing that they could not defend themselves. Mr.
    Kravis wrote that these actions, quote, ``send an unmistakable
    message to prosecutors and agents. If the President demands, we
    will throw you under the bus.''
        Mr. Elias, what has been the effect on morale to think the
    Attorney General will, at the President's whim, throw employees
    under the bus?
        Mr. Elias. Well, when you look at morale in the Antitrust
    Division, as reflected in the viewpoint survey, we are arranged
    404 out of 420.
        Ms. Garcia. Four hundred and four out of 420?
        Mr. Elias. Yes, for agency subcomponents.
        Ms. Garcia. So, you are down at the bottom?
        Mr. Elias. Yes.
        Ms. Garcia. All right. Mr. Zelinsky, how unique is this for
    a Department to provide special treatment to a favorite friend
    and ally of the President over the recommendations of career
    attorneys?
        Mr. Zelinsky. It is, in my experience, unheard of.
        Ms. Garcia. It is unheard of.
        Well, it is unheard of, and we have also seen what he has
    done recently to Berman. The President and this Attorney
    General have tried to send a warning to anyone who wants to
    speak out against the President, to anyone who is willing to
    stand up to them: We will throw you under the bus.
        Well, thanks to the brave testimony of some of our
    witnesses today, the President's tactics didn't work. The truth
    was exposed. The truth still matters.
        Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        I yield back.
        Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. [Presiding.] Thank you.
        Now, Mr. Neguse is now recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Neguse. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to each
    of the witnesses for their testimony today.
        I want to just first clear something for the record.
    Attorney General Mukasey, this is not your first time
    testifying before the House Judiciary Committee; is that
    correct?
        Mr. Mukasey. I believe that's correct, yes.
        Mr. Neguse. In fact, when you were Attorney General under
    George W. Bush, you testified to the Judiciary Committee twice;
    is that your recollection?
        Mr. Mukasey. Yes, to at least two oversight hearings.
        Mr. Neguse. If I am not correct--I believe it is correct
    and you can correct me if I'm wrong--but your predecessor
    Alberto Gonzales, when he was Attorney General, he testified
    before the House Judiciary Committee for an oversight hearing;
    is that correct?
        Mr. Mukasey. I have no idea and I--
        Mr. Neguse. I can tell you--
        Mr. Mukasey. --I have no basis to challenge that, I just, I
    remember my own appearances. I don't know about his.
        Mr. Neguse. I can tell you that it is accurate.
        I can also tell you, Attorney General Mukasey, that
    Attorney General Ashcroft testified before the House Judiciary
    Committee 4 times for oversight hearings. Attorney General
    Holder, Attorney General Janet Reno, they all have testified
    before the House Judiciary Committee.
        The only Attorney General who has not in modern times
    testified before this Committee for an oversight hearing is
    William Barr; are you aware of that?
        Mr. Mukasey. Yes, and I am also aware of the reason. He was
    supposed to testify, and that appearance was cancelled by the
    Chair, I believe, because of the onset of the COVID virus.
        Mr. Neguse. Well, I will tell you that is not entirely
    accurate because there were prior requests for the Attorney
    General to appear before our Committee that declined, but
    nonetheless, I guess, I would tell you this, Attorney General
    Mukasey, do you know, or can you name the last Attorney General
    who declined to appear before the House Judiciary Committee
    before Bill Barr?
        Mr. Mukasey. No, I don't. I believe--
        Mr. Neguse. I can tell you who it is. It is Bill Barr when
    he was Attorney General under President George H.W. Bush.
        So, while I appreciate you being here and I certainly
    respect your service and I think, obviously, our friends on the
    other side of the aisle decided to call you here so that you
    could defend the Attorney General, is within their purview, but
    I think it is important for the Attorney General of the United
    States to come in before this Committee and testify. While I am
    appreciative of the fact that it appears, based on the news
    today, that the Attorney General will appear before the
    committee, I think this Committee needs to be prepared to use
    the compulsory process and inherent contempt, if necessary, to
    ensure that the Attorney General appears before this committee.
        Now, I want to talk a little bit about something that we
    have not yet discussed today, which is the actions of the
    Attorney General regarding the peaceful protests in Lafayette
    Square.
        Mr. Ayer, as you are aware, at the direction of the
    Attorney General, peaceful protesters were forcibly removed
    from Lafayette Square after federal officers in riot gear fired
    gas, pepper spray, and stun grenades into the crowd.
        Now, Attorney General Barr has claimed this was all
    preplanned and unrelated to the President wanting a picture on
    the church steps, but the accounts of many officials contradict
    that, including the D.C. Police Chief, who stated, and I will
    quote, ``We heard that there was going to be an unscheduled
    potential movement.'' Just a few minutes later, our teams on
    the ground learned that chemical munitions were going to be
    used. The munitions were deployed minutes later.
        The timing, itself, makes clear this was no coincidence, as
    well. The clearing of the area began just after 6:30 p.m. and
    President Trump left the White House for the church around 7:02
    p.m.
        So, Mr. Ayer, would you agree--Aver [sic], I am so sorry--
    would you agree, based on the facts that the Attorney General's
    order to forcibly remove the protesters was not to protect
    public safety or uphold the rule of law, but so the President
    could get a photo-op in front of the church on Lafayette
    Square?
        Mr. Ayer. Well, I obviously wasn't there and I didn't--I
    did watch it on TV. I guess I can't go quite that far, but I
    can go to the point of saying that Mr. Barr's several follow-up
    discussions have not covered him in glory. He's changed his
    story. The last thing that I understand is that he admits that
    he ordered the troop movement, but he said he did it, at least
    this is what I remember, he said he did it at 2:00 in the
    afternoon and that the photo-op wasn't until, like you said,
    early in the evening, and so he couldn't possibly have ordered
    it in order for the photo opportunity because he didn't know
    about it at the time; however, he was there at the time.
        He obviously could have unordered if he had wanted to. He
    also made rather strange comments related to what sort of eye
    irritants were used. He tried to make some meaningful
    distinction between pepper balls or pepper spray or whatever it
    is and tear gas on the ground that one wasn't a chemical
    irritant.
        The whole discussion of him, to me--what exactly he ordered
    when, I'm not sure, but the one thing I'm absolutely sure of is
    that (A) he was the one that ordered it and (B) his handling of
    it was such as to give us all enormous basis to distrust
    everything he says.
        Mr. Neguse. Well, let me ask the question in this way. In
    all your years of public service, have you ever seen the
    Attorney General of the United States order the Park Police to
    violently clear with tear gas, peaceful protesters?
        Mr. Ayer. Well, I haven't seen it, but I can't tell you for
    sure it never happened, but I'm certainly not familiar with it,
    nor am I so familiar with instances where the Attorney General
    himself has assumed the role of sort of field marshal ordering
    police and troops around. I've never seen that. I'm not saying
    it necessarily hasn't happened, but I'd love someone to tell
    me.
        Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Thank you, Mr. Ayer. Your time is up.
        Mr. Neguse. I yield back.
        Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Thank you.
        Before I recognize Representative Buck, let me just remind
    every member of this Committee and people that are walking into
    this room, that the guidelines have been set forth by the
    Office of the Attending Physician and the House speaker, that
    Members need to be wearing masks, and Chair stated earlier very
    clearly that Members will not be recognized if they are not
    wearing masks.
        Now, Mr. Buck, I will recognize you, but Mr. Jordan, I find
    it incredibly disrespectful that you have been sitting here
    next to Chair without wearing a mask. You are putting other
    people's lives and their families in danger.
        Mr. Jordan. Every time I speak with Chair, I put a mask on.
    I maintain social distance.
        Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Mr. Buck, you are now recognized.
        Mr. Jordan. The unmasking this Committee should be
    concerned about is the unmasking that took place at the end of
    the Obama Administration.
        Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Mr. Buck, would you like your 5
    minutes?
        Mr. Buck. I yield to Mr. Jordan.
        Mr. Jordan. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
        That is the unmasking we should be concerned about, 20-38
    different people, 49 different times, 6 people at Treasury, 6
    people at Treasury unmasking Michael Flynn makes no sense.
        I do think it is important to get back on the record here,
    the Attorney General was scheduled. As Mr. Mukasey said, the
    Attorney General was scheduled to be here. The Attorney General
    was scheduled to be here in March, and I believe he is coming
    next month, so he will be here to answer all of our questions.
        I wish the Committee would be as focused on getting
    Inspector General Horowitz here, as I said in my opening
    statement.
        Let's go back to where I was earlier, Mr. Mukasey. I want
    to look at something we learned today and view it in the
    context of that statement from Mr. Priestap where he said, what
    is our goal, to get him fired, to get him prosecuted, to get
    him to lie?
        I want to view it in light of what we have learned today
    that took place just a few weeks prior to that. January 4,
    2017, we learned today that former President Obama, James
    Comey, Sally Yates, Joe Biden, and Susan Rice discussed the
    transcripts of Michael Flynn's calls and how to proceed further
    against him. Mr. Obama himself directed, quote, ``the right
    people to investigate Flynn''--I am reading from the supplement
    that was in front of the Court last night, which helped them,
    make their decision--this, this caused former FBI Director
    Comey to acknowledge the obvious, General Flynn's phone calls
    with Ambassador Kislyak appear legitimate.
        Together Peter Strzok's notes, it appears that the vice-
    president then personally raised the idea of the Logan Act. We
    have already discussed the Logan Act and how ridiculous that
    was and the vice-president raising that at the time that he
    did.
        What I want to look at is this idea that Comey says there
    is nothing wrong with the phone calls between Mr. Flynn and
    Ambassador Kislyak and yet 20 days later, and then also, at
    that time, the FBI was ready to drop any proceedings, any case
    against General Flynn, but they decided not to. They decided to
    do basically what Mr. Priestap said, they decided to go after
    him, try to get him to lie, try to set him up.
        20 days later, Jim Comey, again, his words, not ours, Jim
    Comey sneaks two guys into the White House, I think you
    referenced this in your opening statement, sneaks two guys into
    the White House, doesn't follow proper protocol, doesn't notify
    the White House counsel. That is the part that alarms me, and I
    think should alarm any citizen.
        Your thoughts on all that?
        Mr. Mukasey. Well, I've seen the summary of the Strzok
    notes that you mentioned. That just came out today, I believe
    and the timing, as you say, is disturbing.
        Mr. Jordan. Yeah, it sure it. It sure is.
        Mr. Zelinsky, you mentioned those two names, Mr. Cooney and
    then give me the other name one more time, because I want to
    ask you a few questions about these individuals.
        Mr. Zelinsky. Yes, sure, Congressman.
        I believe the name that you're looking for is the former
    first assistant for the U.S. Attorney's Office. As I indicated
    earlier, his name is Alessio Evangelista.
        Mr. Jordan. Evangelista, okay.
        Now, how many times, how many conversations did you have
    with these two individuals about the Stone case?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I just want to be clear before I answer that,
    these are not all the supervisors that I spoke with.
        About the Stone case, I would say I spoke to them dozens,
    if not, 50 times.
        Mr. Jordan. How about the sentencing recommendation in the
    Stone case?
        Mr. Zelinsky. At least a dozen times.
        Mr. Jordan. After February 10th, after you filed it, or
    before?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Prior to February 10th--I'm sorry, you're
    asking prior to the filing--
        Mr. Jordan. No, no, no. Look, you filed it on the 10th,
    there is a supplement the next day, the judge decides the
    supplement is the right way to go, not your approach.
        After February 10th, you said you spoke to Mr. Cooney and
    Mr. Evangelista about this, and they indicated that it was
    politics that were driving it.
        I am asking you how many conversations did you have with
    these two individuals after the 10th about the sentencing
    issue?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Congressman, I want to be very careful
    because I want to truthfully answer your questions to the best
    of my abilities.
        I did not have any conversations with Mr. Evangelista
    following the filing of our memo. The conversation that I
    outlined in my statement had, was with the head of the Fraud
    and Public Corruption Section.
        Mr. Jordan. Okay. That is when they told you that it was
    politics that was driving the decision to change the sentencing
    recommendation; is that right?
        Mr. Zelinsky. That was one of the times. I had previously
    been told--
        Mr. Jordan. Who did they get the information from that they
    passed on to you? Who told them that it was politics driving
    it?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I just want to be clear, again, Congressman,
    when you say, ``them,'' it was the head of the Fraud and Public
    Corruption Section--
        Mr. Jordan. Okay. Who told him or her?
        Mr. Zelinsky. --I talked to about the conversation.
        Mr. Jordan. Who told Mr. Cooney, whoever that person is?
        Mr. Zelinsky. I know that he was in meetings with senior
    leadership. I do not know the source of his information.
        Mr. Jordan. So, you don't know where he got it. He told
    you. You didn't talk to Barr, you didn't talk to the DAG, you
    didn't talk to Mr. Shea, but he told you and, therefore, it has
    to be true.
        Chair Nadler. [Presiding.] The time of the gentleman has
    expired.
        Ms. McBath?
        Ms. McBath. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        I just have to say that I am extremely troubled by the
    events that occurred in our country and more so by what we have
    been hearing today. I am heartened that our Nation has decided
    that they want to come together, but to come together, we need
    trust and we need trustee in our justice system.
        Some of my colleagues have suggested that you, our
    witnesses today, have come forward to testify for political
    reasons and I do not believe that to be the truth. I believe
    that you are brave, independent public servants who have
    stepped forward to simply tell the truth. So, I would like to
    give each of you an opportunity, very briefly, just to tell us
    why you are testifying today.
        Mr. Elias, how long have you been a public servant and what
    other roles have you held?
        Mr. Elias. Thank you, Congresswoman.
        I have been a public servant since 2006 and I've held a
    variety of roles at the DOJ, including two stints as a trial
    attorney, a Special Assistant in the Office of Operations, I
    was in the associates office with a few different roles there,
    as well.
        Ms. McBath. Thank you.
        So, why did you feel after all your years of public service
    that it was so important for you to come and testify before us
    today?
        Mr. Elias. I looked at what was happening, which was unlike
    anything I had ever seen before, and it didn't feel like a good
    faith calling of balls and strikes that I had been used to
    seeing. I care very much about the antitrust laws, their even-
    handed enforcement protecting consumers, and also the
    Institution of the Antitrust Division, where I have spent my
    entire legal career.
        When I saw these abuses, I thought that the public should
    get to know about them, so that's why I stepped forward.
        Ms. McBath. Thank you, Mr. Elias. Thank you so much.
        Mr. Zelinsky, I would like to ask the same questions to
    you. You have spent most of your career in the Department of
    Justice. Why did you feel so strongly about complying with our
    subpoena and coming before us today, as well?
        Mr. Zelinsky. Because I took an oath to do so.
        Ms. McBath. Thank you.
        Mr. Ayer, most of us are very familiar with your very
    extensive career in public service and we are grateful to you
    for your service, but can you briefly explain why you felt the
    need to come forward today.
        Mr. Ayer. Yes. So, in the 10 or 11 years that I was in the
    Department in 4 different positions, I was really inspired by
    the experience I had in a place where people really went to
    work to do the right thing and processes had been put in place,
    a system was working, people had a great deal of respect for
    each other and for the purpose and it worked very well.
        In the time I was there, I kind of moved up through various
    positions and ended as Deputy Attorney General and it became
    clear fairly quickly really why it worked so well and it was
    because of everybody being dedicated and these procedures being
    in place.
        I've known Bill Barr actually for about 4 years. I've never
    known him well, but I've always known that he was a person who
    had this idea that he really thought the President ought to be
    virtually an autocrat. I don't know where he got it, but that's
    his view.
        Ms. McBath. Uh-huh.
        Mr. Ayer. I was fearful when he got nominated this time,
    given that President Trump would like to be an autocrat, too,
    and when he began doing the things he started doing, I became
    extremely concerned, so I--
        Ms. McBath. Okay.
        Mr. Ayer. --have done what I could in terms of writing
    articles, and I will continue to.
        Ms. McBath. Thank you so much for that.
        What concerns me about the testimony that we have heard
    today is that career public servants are telling us, what they
    are telling us, they are supporting facts and evidence and
    corroborating testimony that the Attorney General is pursuing
    cases based on political vendettas and not to protect
    Americans.
        I hope that the Attorney General would be here today and I
    hoped to be able to ask the Attorney General about his actions,
    attempting to reverse the ACA. I had hoped to ask him about
    what he plans to do to prevent gun violence from increasing
    during this crisis. I had hoped to ask him about the plans to
    ensure that all Americans have access to affordable health
    care.
        He did not show up, so we need, now more than ever, we need
    to come together, but we also need answers. It is in times like
    these that when we are in crisis like this, these are the kinds
    of times that define us. These are the moments that define us.
        So, Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to submit a letter
    for the record from 33 former Antitrust Division employees who
    write that Mr. Elias is, and I quote, ``a person of integrity
    and a person who speaks the truth and fights to do what is
    right,'' end quote.
        They also State that Mr. Elias is, and I quote again,
    ``respected throughout the Department of Justice for his candor
    and his commitment to justice,'' end quote.
        Chair Nadler. Without objection.
        [The information follows:]

                           MR. McBATH FOR THE RECORD

    =======================================================================

    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
        Mr. Stanton?
        Mr. Stanton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
        There is keep concern that the Attorney General is using
    the Department of Justice to punish the President's personal
    and political adversaries. Such actions are a blatant abuse of
    our constitutional system.
        Perhaps even more troubling is that in doing so, the
    Department of Justice's resources are not being used to protect
    the American people. Our witnesses have provided evidence here
    today that the Attorney General is pursuing meritless
    investigations simply to appease the President.
        Mr. Elias, in your testimony, you mentioned the Department
    of Justice's investigation into four automakers in California
    who was trying to implement stricter air-quality emission
    standards than those that the Environmental Protection Agency
    was going to adopt; in other words, you wanted to help clean
    our air.
        Is it correct to State that the Department of Justice used
    immense resources, including dozens of attorneys and staff, to
    pursue these investigations, even when career staff told
    leadership that there was no need to further pursue these
    investigations?
        Mr. Elias. So, the DOJ did use dozens of attorneys for the
    cannabis investigations that are also featured in my complaint.
    The emissions investigation was a smaller staff. Yes, public
    resources were used in pursuit of that investigation.
        Mr. Stanton. Does that seem like an appropriate allocation
    of resources to you, to commandeer immense Department resources
    for investigations that career officials said were no longer
    necessary?
        Mr. Elias. That appeared to be, to me, a gross misuse of
    resources between these various investigations and that's why I
    made that allegation to the Inspector General and asked him to
    investigate gross misuse of resources.
        Mr. Stanton. Would it be fair to say that these
    investigations detracted from the legitimate work these
    attorneys could and should have been doing?
        Mr. Elias. If these attorneys are working on that, that
    does take them away from anything else that they could be doing
    that would potentially further the mission of the Antitrust
    Division.
        Mr. Stanton. Using Department resources to appease others'
    activities fails to protect American consumers; in fact, such
    actions actively harm Americans by weakening the Department's
    ability to prosecute legitimate antitrust claims.
        The American people would much rather see the Department of
    Justice investigate issues of grave, grave concern to us all,
    for example, companies seeking to price gouge Americans by
    making them pay more for essential health products in the
    middle of a pandemic. Back in April, my colleague Congressman
    Ruben Gallego and I brought to light a price-gouging chain
    taking place in Arizona. The City of Phoenix Fire and Police
    Departments were being charged nearly 600 percent more than the
    usual prices for N95 masks during a pandemic.
        Such egregious and completely unacceptable behavior
    requires the Department of Justice to use all its resources to
    enforce our laws. What I find so troubling is that while the
    Department of Justice is spending time on illegitimate
    investigations, it could be working to fight real injustices in
    our system. Americans deserve a Department of Justice that
    serve the people and treats all of defendants equally under the
    law, regardless of who they know or their political
    affiliations, and above all, they deserve a Department of
    Justice that follows the law.
        The testimony today continues to reiterate the urgent need
    for the Attorney General to appear before this committee. I
    look forward to having Attorney General Barr here in July
    because Congress and the American people have serious questions
    that need immediate answers.
        I yield back.
        Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
        Ms. Dean?
        Ms. Dean. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        I thank all the testifiers, all 4 of our testifiers for
    coming before us. I admire your sense of duty. I admire your
    giving of your time and your public service. America is
    counting on you. They are counting on Congress. They are
    counting on you. I thank you for coming before us.
        Mr. Ayer, I would like to go into a little bit more,
    something that Jamie Raskin, Representative Raskin brought up.
    The testimony today that most of you have delivered has
    confirmed what we have feared; that the Department of Justice
    is being used by the President and the Attorney General as a
    partisan political tool. It appears that Attorney General
    Barr's actions towards States among the coronavirus pandemic is
    part of this perversion of justice. We are in a pandemic. We
    are in a political year, an election year.
        On April 17th of this year, the President tweeted, and I
    quote, ``Liberate Minnesota!'' exclamation point. Quote,
    ``Liberate Michigan!'' exclamation point. In all caps,
    ``LIBERATE VIRGINIA AND SAVE YOUR SECOND AMENDMENT; IT IS UNDER
    SIEGE,'' end quote.
        Shortly thereafter, Attorney General Barr publishing a memo
    appointing the Assistant Attorney General for civil rights and
    the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan
    to investigate States stay-at-home. Needless to say, that broad
    order included Minnesota, Michigan, and Virginia; the states
    the President had politically targeted.
        Mr. Ayer, Professor Ayer, is it standard practice for an
    Attorney General to bring action against states based on a
    President's political exclamations?
        Mr. Ayer. No, of course it's not, and I think in this
    instance, it's particularly unsuitable when the nature of the
    problem is really a genuine local problem that varies from
    place to place.
        The patterns that you point out of Mr. Barr acting
    sometimes right after, but in any event, totally in a consonant
    manner with, somewhat intemperate at times, political
    expressions, usually tweets by the President, it doesn't just
    happen in this area. It's happening in a lot of different
    areas.
        The one I'm the most concerned about is the one that
    relates to this Obama-gate nonsense that's being spewed by the
    President and Bill Barr is echoing it, now in TV appearances
    that are running about every 10 days. He goes on Fox News, and
    he talks about his investigation and how people are going to
    get charged, and I don't know what's next.
        Ms. Dean. I have seen that. I fear what is next.
        Even more concerning is that AG Barr has made clear that he
    will use his powers to strong-arm states into doing what he
    wants, regardless of the law. White House health experts
    publicly emphasize that removing stay-at-home orders
    prematurely, these are the health experts, prematurely, could
    lead to avoidable death and suffering. Barr has, as my
    colleague raised, threatened to jawbone governors, that is his
    word, who follow these public health recommendations.
        Mr. Ayer, in your written testimony you explain that quote,
    and I will quote you, ``conduct limitations to protect the
    public safety in a health crisis is uniquely within the
    province of the State and municipal government and their
    choices that are highly local and tragically difficult.''
        Did you believe that the Department of Justice review of
    state's challenges, Attorney General Barr's challenges stay-at-
    home orders was motivated by a legitimate concern or
    constitutional overreach?
        Mr. Ayer. Well, I think it was constitutional overreach. I
    think it was a solution to a problem that didn't exist because
    the President wanted that interference to occur. That's what I
    think.
        Ms. Dean. It is certainly not my grandfather's Republican
    party who believed states' rights were very important to
    protect, particularly, in the area of public health.
        You even said that Chief Justice Robert wrote that our
    Constitution principally entrusts the safety and health of the
    people to the politically accountable officials to the states
    to guard and protect; is that correct?
        Mr. Ayer. That is right.
        Ms. Dean. At the height of the global pandemic that
    shuttered 50 states, the President and the Attorney General
    conspired to use the might of the Department of Justice to
    punish states who took necessary actions.
        With my remaining time, just very briefly, do you believe
    Mr. Barr is fit to continue serving as Attorney General, yes or
    no?
        Mr. Ayer. No, I absolutely don't.
        I wrote an article about 6 or 8 months ago saying that and
    it is gotten nothing but worse.
        Ms. Dean. Finally, Mr. Zelinsky, I, too, thank you for
    being with us. I have to tell you it is not lost on me that in
    this Committee we have hit a new low when Members on the other
    side of the aisle, mostly Members who will refuse to wear a
    mask, attempt to paint you, they failed, but attempt to point
    you in some negative light for staying in a remote location to
    protect a newborn child.
        I will say to you what we believe on this side of the aisle
    is thank you for your duty, for your service, for protecting
    your family and your newborn baby, and I think the only thing
    we should have in regard to your reason for not being here is
    congratulations on the birth of your baby.
        With that, I yield back.
        Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
        Ms. Mucarsel-Powell?
        Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. Ayer, I want to focus on Barr's handling of
    investigations into election interference. In Florida, we have
    serious concerns about the security of our elections.
        The Russian Government hacked Florida's election system in
    2016 and it is crucial that we ensure the integrity of the
    election process in November. Attorney General Barr is not
    doing anything to make this happen. He called the special
    counsel's investigation into Russia's interference, quote,
    ``one of the greatest travesties in American history'' and said
    that investigators were trying to, quote, ``sabotage the
    presidency,'' end quote.
        Let's be clear, the special counsel's investigation
    confirmed that Russia attacked our elections. Several people
    were indicted, including Members of the Trump campaign for
    lying about their involvement into Russia.
        The intelligence community and the Senate Intelligence
    Committee also confirmed the Russian hacking. Even Attorney
    General Barr said, quote, ``I am confident that Russians
    attempted to interfere in the election,'' end quote.
        Mr. Chair, I would like to enter into the record this op-ed
    published in USA TODAY by Attorney General Barr on February 19,
    2020.
        Chair Nadler. Without objection.
        [The information follows:]

                      MS. MUCARSEL-POWELL FOR THE RECORD

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        Ms. Dean. Thank you.
        In the statement with FBI Director Wray, Barr lists Russia
    as a current threat. It says that an informed and discerning
    public is a resilient public, meaning we need to tell the
    public about Russia's threat.
        AG Barr's words mean nothing because he is not here to tell
    the public anything. He and the President would rather attack
    the investigations into interference than protect our elections
    and prevent Russian interference.
        In March, AG Barr dropped the two-year-long prosecution of
    a Russian company charged with conspiring to defraud the U.S.
    Government. The company was organizations a social media
    campaign to interfere in the Presidential election and is run
    by a man referred to as Putin's chef, because of his proximity
    to Vladimir Putin.
        Mr. Ayer, does it concern you that the Attorney General is
    dropping investigations of Russian companies who have harmed
    us?
        Mr. Ayer. Well, I don't know the facts of the cases that
    you're talking about, so I can't comment specifically. It does
    bother me a lot that there--I'm not aware that there's very
    much being done to deal with the problem of Russian
    interference in our election and it seems to me there ought to
    be just an enormous priority on that, just as there should be
    an enormous priority on figuring out how people are going to be
    able to vote with the coronavirus.
        Ms. Dean. Thank you, Mr. Ayer.
        So, I'd like to see the priorities somewhere other than the
    wrong direction, which is some of the areas he's talking about.
        Ms. Dean. Thank you.
        The Attorney General knows that Russia is a threat, but he
    is dropping prosecutions against Russians who attacked us. What
    message does it send to other foreign threats like China or
    Iran if our Attorney General won't hold Russia accountable?
        Mr. Ayer, you wrote in your written testimony that AG Barr
    was, quote, ``actively undermining and subverting the role of
    independent fact-finders who were put in place precisely so
    that the public can have trust in our justice system.''
        Can you briefly explain this to us?
        Mr. Ayer. Well, it's a couple of different levels of
    activity. One is, you know, the statements he made with regard
    to the Muller investigation, basically whitewashing the
    findings with regard to obstruction; that was the biggest
    single part. He just misleads us about it.
        In December when the IG investigation by Horowitz of the
    Russian-interference investigation came out and they found that
    it was properly predicated and there was no bias in the
    oversight of it, Barr immediately went public, and I think went
    on the media and announced he disagreed with that.
        So, he actively intervenes and undermines conclusions, but
    he also acts to replace, to override, he has these processes
    that he's put in place, including his own investigation,
    duplicative investigation of the Russian interference, and then
    these little things that come along like doing intake of
    information from Rudy Giuliani; well, we'll just handle that
    in-house. We won't let the career people deal with that.
        Ms. Dean. Yes.
        Mr. Ayer. There's a bunch of those.
        Ms. Dean. I share your concern.
        This should not be about party politics. The stakes are way
    too high, and we should all be focused on protecting the
    integrity of our elections, Mr. Ayer, but when the integrity of
    law enforcement is corrupted, when men place themselves above
    the rule of law, nations fail.
        I can tell you that because I have witnessed it firsthand
    in Latin America; governments filed with corruption devolve
    into chaos when politics are injected into the justice system.
    People lose their faith in their leaders, and I don't want that
    to happen in the United States of America.
        William Barr's actions has taken the Department of Justice
    down that path. His conduct is corrupt, dangerous, and it must
    be stopped.
        I yield back.
        Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
        Ms. Escobar?
        Ms. Escobar. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        I want to close today by going back to what happened in
    Lafayette Square. On June 1st, Americans were shocked as they
    watched an incredible scene unfold. Here, in Washington, DC,
    peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square came together in
    protest, demanding change after watching graphic video of
    George Floyd's murder.
        They came together in protest demanding change because of
    our country's horrific history of police brutality linked to
    racism, and on June 1st, while they peacefully stood in
    Lafayette Square, these peaceful protesters were overcome by
    mounted law enforcement and tear gas.
        Protesters, Members of the media, Americans watching this
    at home were all stunned and wondered why. Moments later, as
    the President sauntered over to St. John's Episcopal Church,
    the story became clearer.
        We now know that in Lafayette Square, Attorney General
    Barr's Department engaged in these tactics, forcibly removing
    protesters with tear gas and pepper spray, using stinger-ball
    grenades, not to uphold the rule of law, not to protect
    Americans, but because the President wanted to pose for a
    picture; in other words, Attorney General Barr used the powers
    of the Justice Department to help the President's campaign film
    an ad.
        The President, rather than understand why he should feel
    shame for this, praised the horrific treatment of these
    protesters, tweeting, quote, ``the protesters, agitators,
    anarchists, Antifa, and others were handled very easily by the
    Guard, D.C. Police, and SS, great job,'' end quote.
        There was immediate nationwide outrage, including
    condemnation of this egregious abuse of power by Archbishop
    Wilton Gregory, General Jim Mattis, former Joint Chief of Staff
    Chair Martin Dempsey, and Chair Colin Powell, and a number of
    others.
        It couldn't be clearer that Attorney General Barr, as the
    President's chief enabler is willing to lie and corrupt the
    Department so that he can protect and promote the President's
    personal and political interests at all costs.
        We have heard today how Barr weaponized the Department of
    Justice to retaliate against states the President doesn't like.
        We have also heard today how the Department is granting
    special favors to defendants who break the law, all because the
    U.S. Attorney was afraid of President Trump, and he has reason
    to be afraid.
        We heard today what happens to prosecutors who stand up,
    like Mr. Zelinsky, and say, this is wrong. They are told to get
    in line, or you will lose your job, and we have seen how true
    that actually is.
        U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said his office would conduct
    its investigations without fear or favor; investigations that
    we know go to the heart of the President's inner circle, and
    what happened to him? He was fired.
        We have confirmed today what we have known all along, the
    Attorney General is willing to corrupt our government, ignore
    our rule of law and do whatever it takes to keep Trump in
    power, including subverting the upcoming elections.
        Barr will lie to the American people if it helps the
    President achieve his goals. He cannot and should not get away
    with this.
        Mr. Ayer, I would like to end by asking you, with your
    decades in office as a public servant, what happens to our
    democracy if we do not hold Barr accountable? Can you describe
    what the effect is on the American people's perception of the
    Justice Department is our Attorney General is allowed to place
    the President's wishes above our rule of law?
        Mr. Ayer. Well, I don't want to get too apocalyptic, but I
    think if you want just a real-life microcosm of it, I think you
    go back and you look at what happened in Watergate. In
    Watergate, we had a real failure. We had, and I won't go
    through all the facts, and some of you remember it and some of
    you don't, but the Justice Department failed, and the
    government justice system failed and we were very, very lucky
    to have President Ford nominate Edward Levi as the Attorney
    General and he saw the problem.
        The problem is one of trust. Not surprisingly when the
    Justice Department and the justice system becomes
    untrustworthy, and that's the problem that we're talking about
    here today, when it becomes untrustworthy, guess what? People
    don't trust it.
        When people lose trust in the Government, and they lose
    trust in the law, then you don't have law, then you have
    lawlessness, and you go from there and you know what ends up
    happening. So, it's very important that we recognize what's
    happening now.
        What's happening now is much worse than what happened in
    Watergate, much worse. It's across the board, it's a systematic
    effort to undo the checks that were put in place in Watergate
    and others that existed in the Constitution, and we need to do
    something about it. People need to stand up now and demand that
    something be done about it.
        This guy has got to go, and we need to get back on the
    track of having a system of justice where we care about doing
    it right and being fair even-handed.
        Ms. Escobar. Thank you, Mr. Ayer.
        Sadly, this hearing demonstrates that Mr. Barr isn't the
    only enabler of President Trump. He, unfortunately, has way too
    many. Thank you.
        Mr. Chair, I yield back.
        Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
        This concludes today's hearing. We thank all our witnesses
    for participating.
        Without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days
    to submit additional written records, written questions for the
    witnesses, or additional materials for the record.
        Without objection, the hearing is adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 4:29 p.m., the Committee adjourned.]

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