Democratic presidential candidates slam Attorney General William Barr amid calls for his resignation

Barr was grilled on Capitol Hill Wednesday over his Mueller report handling.

May 2, 2019, 12:58 AM

Amid an intense grilling before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, calls among Democrats running for president in 2020 for the resignation of Attorney General William Barr to resign are continuing to spread quickly across the crowded presidential field.

"This Attorney General lacks all credibility and has I think compromised the American public’s ability to believe that he is a purveyor of justice," California Sen. Kamala Harris told reporters outside of the hearing room where Barr faced an extended grilling over his handling of the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

PHOTO: Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Cory Booker, left, and Sen. Kamala Harris, right, listen as Attorney General William Barr testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., May 1, 2019.
Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Cory Booker, left, and Sen. Kamala Harris, right, listen as Attorney General William Barr testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., May 1, 2019, on the Mueller Report.
Andrew Harnik/AP

Harris' comments came directly after she pressed Barr on whether or not President Trump or other White House personnel have asked him to open an investigation into anyone, a question Barr did not directly answer.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, on the campaign trail in Iowa, also called on Barr to step down. When asked if the attorney general should resign, he responded, "I think he’s lost the confidence of the American people. I think he should."

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar also had a chance to question Barr on Wednesday, pressing him on his handling of the dissemination of Mueller's findings.

"I think that's my point here. You look at the totality of the evidence, that's what I learned when I was in law school. You look at the totality of the evidence and the pattern here," Klobuchar told Barr after the Attorney General attempted to explain why he concluded that President Trump's actions related to the Mueller probe did not amount to obstruction of justice.

Booker criticized Barr's “willingness to seem to brush over this and use words like the American people should be grateful with what's in this report, nobody should be grateful. Concerted efforts for deception, for misleading, inappropriate action after inappropriate action that is clear.”

Booker later took to Twitter to call on Barr to "step down."

Harris and Booker join a growing number of Democratic presidential candidates that are demanding that Barr, the nation's top law enforcement official, either resign or face impeachment proceedings.

"AG Barr is a disgrace, and his alarming efforts to suppress the Mueller report show that he's not a credible head of federal law enforcement. He should resign—and based on the actual facts in the Mueller report, Congress should begin impeachment proceedings against the President," Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren tweeted Wednesday afternoon.

"He's completely compromised. He ought to resign or they should begin impeachment inquiry," former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro said during an interview on CNN Tuesday evening.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, California Rep. Eric Swalwell and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg have also called on Barr to step down.

Despite the growing calls for Barr to resign, Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, said Wednesday that he is not yet ready to join the growing consensus in the Democratic field, despite calling the attorney general's actions "outrageous."

"No, I don't know if he should resign or not. I really don't. And I've been preoccupied with other things," Sanders said in an interview with Sirius XM radio.

ABC News' Lucien Bruggeman, Chris Donato and Kendall Karson contributed to this report.

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