Cummings: Barr acting like ‘defense counsel’ for Trump rather than AG

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) on Sunday accused Attorney General William Barr of acting as a “defense counsel” for President Trump rather than as U.S. attorney general.

“Mr. Barr is acting as the defense counsel for the president of the United States, when really, he’s supposed to be our lawyer — the people’s lawyer,” Cummings said on CBS’s “Face The Nation.”

“I am appealing to Mr. Barr to please do the job you’re supposed to do … he bent over backwards to give this president the benefit of the doubt, he even expressed empathy with the fact that the president when he came was under pressure, well all presidents are under pressure,” he continued.

.@RepCummings says AG Barr “is acting as the defense counsel for the president of the United States, when really, he’s supposed to be our lawyer– the people’s lawyer.” pic.twitter.com/kji5kI8lxP

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) April 21, 2019

Cummings’s remarks came after the Department of Justice on Thursday released a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s long-anticipated report to the public.

{mosads}The report laid out the findings of Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference and possible obstruction of justice by Trump. 

Barr, prior to the release of the redacted report, sent a letter to Congress detailing the Justice Department’s top-level conclusions of Mueller’s 22-month investigation.

In his four-page summary of the more than 400-page report, Barr wrote that the special counsel did not conclude there was coordination between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Barr also stated in his letter that the special counsel’s team did not reach a conclusion on obstruction of justice, adding that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein decided not to pursue obstruction charges.

Barr was widely panned by congressional Democrats for giving a press conference before the report’s public release on Thursday.

A group of House Democrats, including Cummings, had called for Barr to cancel the “inappropriate” conference, slamming it as a way to spin the findings of Mueller’s investigation before the public had seen the full report.

Fox News anchor Chris Wallace on Thursday accused Barr of acting as a “counselor for the president,” following Barr’s press conference and the report’s release.

“The attorney general seemed almost to be acting as the counselor for the defense, the counselor for the president, rather than the attorney general, talking about his motives, his emotions,” he said.

Senator 2020 presidential candidate Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) similarly said Barr was “more like Trump’s defense attorney than the nation’s Attorney General,” citing Barr’s press conference prior to the report’s being made public.