Pelosi: Barr committed a crime by lying to Congress

Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday accused Attorney General William Barr of committing a crime by lying “We saw Barr commit a crime when he answered your question,” Pelosi told Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.) during a private caucus meeting Thursday morning, according to two sources present for the gathering.to Congress, blasting him in a closed-door meeting and later at a news conference.

“He lied to Congress. He lied to Congress,” Pelosi said soon after at a news conference. “And if anybody else did that, it would be considered a crime. Nobody is above the law. Not the president of the United States, and not the attorney general.“

Pelosi’s comments were an apparent reference to Barr’s response to Crist last month during a House Appropriations Committee hearing, during which the attorney general said he was not aware of any concerns that special counsel Robert Mueller’s team might have expressed about his four-page summary of Mueller’s findings.

Barr’s response appeared to contradict the revelation earlier this week that Mueller himself wrote to the attorney general saying he was worried that Barr’s summary “threatens to undermine … public confidence” in the Russia probe. Mueller also said Barr’s memo “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the investigation.