Hillary Clinton believes that Attorney General William Barr should resign for acting like President Trump's 'defense lawyer' in his handling of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 elections.
'Calling for [Barr's] resignation makes perfect sense, because he's not discharging the duties of the office; he's not going to resign, and at this point, I think that we know what we need to know about him,' Clinton said during an appearance on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show.
When asked about Barr's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Clinton said: 'It was another day today where you just can't even believe what you're hearing.'
The former secretary of state, who lost to Trump in the 2016 presidential elections, says that Congress should call other witnesses mentioned in Mueller's report.
Hillary Clinton (above) on Wednesday called for Attorney General William Barr to resign over his handling of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 elections
She also called on the House Judiciary Committee to hold Barr in contempt.
The Trump administration has vowed to block any current and former aides from testifying before Congress on the Mueller report.
'They will block everything,' Clinton said.
'This also comes alongside them refusing the subpoena for the unredacted Mueller report and suing his own accounting firm and bank so they don't respond to congressional subpoenas.'
The Trump organization this week sued Deutsche Bank and Capital One in an attempt to block them from submitting financial and banking records to Congress.
'They're trying to block the White House counsel [Don McGahn] from responding to a subpoena,' Clinton said.
'We're seeing a wall come up in terms of what they're saying they're going to allow.
'If they try to wholesale block every witness who spoke to Mueller from speaking to these committees, how does that resolve?
Barr appeared on Wednesday to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee
'How does that end? Does it become an endless legal fight?'
McGahn, the former White House counsel, threatened to quit when Trump ordered him to fire Mueller, according to the Mueller report.
Democrats say Trump's attempt to fire Mueller constitutes obstruction of justice.
Clinton said that Barr showed on Wednesday that he is 'not the attorney general of the United States in the way that he has conducted himself.'
'He auditioned for the job with his 19-page memo basically saying there is no such thing as obstruction of justice when it comes to a president,' Clinton said.
'He was hired to make sure that was a reality. He has behaved in that way.'
Clinton was referring to Barr's memo, which he wrote months before he was confirmed as attorney general earlier this year.
In the memo, Barr criticized the Mueller investigation and said that the president could not commit obstruction of justice.
Barr on Wednesday canceled plans to testify before the House of Representatives about his handling of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, further inflaming tensions between Trump and Democrats in Congress.
Barr was due to face the Democratic-controlled House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, but pulled out after the two sides were unable to agree on the format for the hearing.
Power struggle: Barr (left) is refusing to turn up to testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Democratic congressman Jerrold Nadler (right)
Senators Corey Booker (left) and Kamala Harris (right), Democrats on the Judiciary Committee who are running for president, both questioned Barr and then called for him to resign
Go now: Mazie Hirono, the Hawaii Democratic senator, told Barr that he had lied to the American people about the contents of the Mueller report and said: 'You should resign.'
'It’s simply part of the administration’s complete stonewalling of Congress,' Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler told reporters.
Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said Nadler’s proposal to have committee lawyers question Barr was 'unprecedented and unnecessary,' saying questions should come from lawmakers.
The Justice Department also said on Wednesday it would not comply with a Nadler-issued subpoena seeking an unredacted version of Mueller’s report and underlying investigative files from the probe.
Earlier on Wednesday, Barr spent more than four hours before the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee where he fended off Democratic criticism of his decision to clear Trump of criminal obstruction of justice and faulted Special Counsel Robert Mueller for not reaching a conclusion of his own on the issue.
In his first congressional testimony since releasing a redacted version of Mueller’s report on April 18, Barr also dismissed Mueller’s complaints that he initially disclosed the special counsel’s conclusions on March 24 in an incomplete way that caused public confusion.
Illustrating tensions between the two men, Barr described as 'a bit snitty' a March 27 letter from Mueller in which the special counsel urged him to release broader summaries of his findings - a step Barr rejected.
Trump seized on Barr’s March 24 letter to declare that he had been fully exonerated.
Several Democrats on the Senate committee called for Barr’s resignation.
Democrats have accused Barr of trying to protect the Republican president, who is seeking re-election next year.
They pressed Barr on why he decided two days after receiving the 448-page document from Mueller in March to conclude that Trump had not unlawfully sought to obstruct the 22-month investigation.
'I don’t think the
