welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing this important day with us. in just a few moments we'll get back to the confirmation of william barr. he's the next pick for attorney general. if you've been watching the testimony, barr promising to uphold the justice department and to maintain his own personal independence as well. from everything we've seen in the past two years, he says he's promised the president nothing. >> president trump has sought no assurances, promises, or commitments from me of any kind,

either expressed or implied, and i have not given him any other than i would run the department with professionalism and integrity. as attorney general, my allegiance will be to the rule of law, the constitution, and the american people. this is how it should be, this is how it must be, and if you confirm me, this is how it will be. >> democrats and even many of the republicans, of course, concerned first and foremost how would an attorney general bill barr handle the mueller investigation? if the president is watching, i might have been a little bit surprised to learn his nominee sda disagrees with him about a lot of things, given that jeff sessions shouldn't have recused himself. >> i don't believe mr. mueller would be involved in a witch hunt. >> do you believe attorney general sessions had a conflict because he worked on the trump campaign? >> i'm not sure of all the

facts, but i think he probably did the right thing recusing himself. >> are the democrats going to push throughout the day for more specifics? barr pledged if confirmed, he would allow mueller to complete his investigation. barr also promising very clearly and repeatedly not to allow any improper political white house interference with mueller's work. he said he would support releasing mueller's findings to the public as much as he could, he said, within the law and regulations, and he said the president would not get a chance to correct mueller's report before any public release. with me at the table are senior political reporter mia henderson, justice reporter laura jarrett and chief legal analyst jeffrey toobin. number one, we'll see what happens this afternoon. it's like anything, you get this break, everybody resets, they go in a room and pull out a strategy. bill barr helped them this morning without a doubt. any openings?

>> there are 53 republicans in the senate -- >> he's in, anyway. >> he's going to get confirmed in any case. but i thought he was a very impressive witness. he was plain-spoken, he didn't try to hedge in any obvious way. i think one area where the more aggressive democrats are going to try to take him up is on the report. the report because he said i will make it public to the extent i can, that being the we weasel word, and i think the issue of how much the president will be allowed to cite executive privilege to keep stuff secret, that's something i expect some of the senators will want to explore. in terms of mueller's independence, it's hard to imagine he could have given any more -- >> if you know barr, and some of the senior democrats do know

him, it will be interesting to see how they vote. they know him, they've seen him around town, they've known him for 30-something years. they will be hard pressed to vote no. but if you believe he has a secret deal with the president, you look at that as he'll go through the regulations with a fine-tooth comb and release as little as possible. >> there are a lot of skeptical people out there, those who are not fans of the president, who believe barr was brought in essentially to manage the final phase of this investigation. and look, i mean, i think he will have a lot to decide on. there's going to be a lot up to his interpretation of those regulations. one of the things that really surprised me today was the fact that for all of the positioning of the democrats over this memo he wrote, this 19-page memo that he wrote sort of opining on whether or not mueller had the right to investigate the

president on obstruction of justice, he kind of emerged unscathed in the questioning. you know, he explained it, i think, pretty fully. at least to the satisfaction of the people who were asking him questions this morning. we'll see whether or not some of the 2020 democrats you're talking about -- >> amy klobuchar, cory booker. on the republican side, we'll see. >> it's going to be tough. they're probably going to ask him some pointed questions. they're probably more suspicious of barr, why he wrote this memo, why it was disseminated so widely and whether or not this is why he ended up in this position because -- >> just going back to what evan said about the it 119-page memo barr said, i was just like the

old guy on the sofa with the remote. i thought i would write up this memo, i didn't really know anything. it has a ring of truth to it. >> he also smartly brought up saying, i sent a memo saying don't prosecute bob menendez, the democrat. there are a number of us who used to serve in these positions. we play monday morning quarterback and we share our positions. if you believe everything bill barr just said, my question is, will the president come to regret this pick? we know what jeff sessions went through for two years. the president said you never should have recused yourself. we know rod rosenstein got through. former attorney general in the george w. bush years. he's made a lot of money in the business. why, with children and grandchildren, would you come back in? bill barr saying, i actually think i'm the right guy for the job because i don't have a political future. kbr i don't have to listen when the

president tweets. dick durbin said, would you be bullied? >> i'm not going to do anything that i think is wrong, and i will not be bullied into doing anything i think is wrong by anybody, whether it be editorial boards or congress or the president. i'm going to do what i think is right. >> interesting to hear that answer because i want to go back in time. he was asked by the democrats at the time the president asked him to be attorney general. there was an earlier time in 2017 where the idea was, do we want bill barr to join our private defense team, helping fight back against the special counsel investigation, and listen to bill barr describing the moment where he's being rushed in to a brief meeting with the president of the united states, he sees the staff waiting around. they have important business to do at the white house. what's the president ask right off the top? >> it was a very brief meeting where essentially the president wanted to know -- he said, oh, you know bob mueller. how well do you know bob mueller? i told him how well i knew bob mueller and how the barrs and

muellers were good friends and would be good friends when this is all over and so forth. and he was interested in that, wanted to know, you know, what i thought about mueller's integrity and so forth and so on. i said, bob is a straight shooter and should be dealt with as such. he said something to the effect like, so are you envisioning some role here? i said, actually, mr. president, right now i couldn't do it. so he asked me for my phone number. i gave it to him and i never heard from him again. >> i tried that one. you did better than me. >> i didn't hear from him until, you know, later. >> if you don't remember the history from 2016, go to any search engine you got, lindsey graham's cell phone, you'll find out the end of that. if that was a fair representation of the conversation, and there's no reason to think it isn't, and all the other things he said

about bob mueller and all the promises he just made, knowing what the president did to jeff sessions, knowing what the president had done to rod rosenstein over the years, how did bill barr even get this job? >> what's fascinating there, john, is this idea that he and mueller are friends, something he took care to say a couple times. i noticed with pat leahy, the top democrat, took care to say i wasn't criticizing mueller, i just thought the team should be more balanced. >> can the democrats use that to say, first we thought you were too harsh on him. now your cozy and you're friends. >> they'll try. >> is there anything in the regulations? >> they'll try to say maybe you're too cozy with mueller. i think the democrats will try to do everything to try to get him to recuse himself. >> how many times have we heard the president say that comey and bob mueller are best friends? they're not. that's not true. but he's tweeting about it, he's

raising it as a so-called conflict, but the fact that barr and mueller are actual friends doesn't seem to be an issue for him. >> just the fact that someone is describing a conversation with the president -- by the way, how many people have we seen in these hearings who refuse to tell about what the conversation they had with the president was about. bill barr setting a new tone. perhaps we'll get a lot of information. >> and remember the joke with lindsey graham saying, do you think the president is a one-pager. i think the president may be learning a bit about his nominee for attorney general that maybe he didn't understand, about his depth and his history. we're going to take a quick break. we're waiting for the hearing to resume, the confirmation hearing of william barr to be the next attorney general of the united states. you see the meeting room on capitol hill. we'll be right back.

now this is their promise not to drop you even if you have an accident. - i know when i'm driving, i'm covered. - [narrator] drivers 50 and over can save hundreds of dollars when they switch to the aarp auto insurance program from the hartford and get other incredible benefits like lifetime renewability. not an aarp member? the hartford can help you join in minutes. call the hartford to request your free quote at... or go to... welcome back.

we're keeping an eye on capitol hill. this is the hearing room for william barr, who is to be the next attorney general of the united states. as the new attorney general, bill barr would oversee the mueller investigation. the chairman, rick gates, has had a plea deal with the special investigation. he needs more time, which tells you work is underway. >> that's the question i get most often from people is when is it going to be done? i'm no fool, i'm never going to say exactly when it's going to be done. this tells us the work is continuing and it will be done when it's done. the filing says that they're asking for two more months but it doesn't necessarily mean two more months. it could be three, it could be one and a half. we don't know. >> but we do know, jeffrey

toobin is asking about the manafort case. he was his deputy both in business and the private campaign. part of their evidence is about stuff that happened during the campaign, including sharing polling information with ukranians close to russia. so you have some evidence on the polling record that rick gates remains an important, cooperating witness. >> that's true, but in the brief item that was filed by the mueller office today, they said several investigations, which at least suggests that it's not just manafort. it could be people who haven't been charged yet. >> he was deeply involved in the trump inauguration. that's just one. >> so, you know, there seems to be this somehow consensus that mueller is wrapping up, mueller is almost done. i don't know where that comes from. i mean, in fact, there are some hints. the fact that he is allowing michael cohen to testify in

front of congress does suggest that, you know, he is more or less done with cohen. but he's not the only witness in this case. >> we don't know how broad the portfolio is, therefore, he might be done with chapter a or subject a. we have no idea -- >> and the grand jury has been extended. we still have the mystery case. >> the michael flynn sentencing was delayed because the judge was quite skeptical, are you sure you want to do this? so you have a new choice to be attorney general. you've described him as a friend. you know what the united states did to the first attorney general, jeff sessions, belittling him, undermining him at every turn in the justice department. the investigation continues. you see the members coming back into the room. bill barr was asked the question, do you see any circumstances, especially as pressure came from the white house, where you would fire bob mueller? >> are there any circumstances

that would cause you to terminate the investigation or any component of it or significantly restrict its funding? >> under the regulations, bob mueller could only be terminated for good cause, and frankly, it's unimaginable to me that bob would ever do anything that gave rise to good cause. but in theory -- >> i take you right back to the live hearing right now. >> this is my first chance at a committee hearing to congratulate you on taking the gavel here. we worked well together when you were chairman of the crime and terrorism subcommittee, and i hope that that will continue here. mr. barr, welcome. did you make it a condition of taking this job that rod rosenstein had to go? just to be clear so we're not

bandying words here, did you request or signal or otherwise communicate in any way that you wanted rod rosenstein to go? >> no. the president said that the decision on the deputy was mine, anything i wanted to do on the deputy was mine. >> so we will find no william barr fingerprints on rosenstein's departure? >> no. rod and i have been talking, you know, about his plans. he told me that he viewed it as a two-year stint and would like to use, if i'm confirmed, my coming in as an occasion to leave, but we talked about the need for a transition, and i asked him if he would stay for a while, and he said he would, and so as of right now, i would say there is no -- he has no concrete plans, i have no concrete plans in terms of his departure. we're going to sort of play it by ear and see what makes sense.

>> you have not undertaken to run him out in any way? >> absolutely not. >> that leaves an opening at the dag position whenever you work this out. can you tell us, since attorneys general are very often defined by the immediate appointments around them at chief of staff dag, criminal chief. what are the qualifications you will seek as you fill particularly that position, but all three that i mentioned? >> i'm sorry, the deputy and what was the other one? >> chief of staff and criminal chief. >> there is already a criminal chief. >> i know. there's already a deputy attorney general, but he's leaving. >> for a deputy, i'd like someone who is a really good manager and who has had good managing experience running government programs. and i want a first-rate lawyer and someone whose judgment i feel comfortable in.

experience -- >> experience in the department? >> not necessarily, but experience in the government at a high level. >> when we met, i gave you a letter you've seen just so none of these questions will be a surprise, so i hope it's no surprise that i'm going through some of them. if you're confirmed, what will be the department's rule regarding communications between white house and department of justice officials regarding criminal and investigative matters? who at doj will be allowed to have those conversations with the white house, and who at the white house will you entertain those conversations from at doj? >> i've looked through the existing regime, and my instinct is to keep it, maybe even tighten it up a little bit more. i remember when george w. bush's administration was coming, and my advice was, start tight, and then as you realize who has judgment and so forth, you can go back to --

>> they went the other way, and it was a bad day for attorney general gonzalez in the hearing room when that was brought to his attention. what is your understanding right now of who at the department of justice is authorized to have communications with the white house regarding -- >> it depends what it is, but on criminal matters, i would just have the ag and the deputy. >> and what do you think the rule is now in the department? >> i think that's what it is. >> okay. so if the reports are true that, as chief of staff, mr. whitaker was involved in conversations with the white house about bringing criminal investigations against the president's political enemies, that would not be consistent with your understanding of that policy? >> well, it would depend upon, you know, what his understanding is with the attorney general. >> well, the attorney general was recused, so hard to step into the shoes of a recused attorney general on that matter,

right? >> i don't know what the communication is related to. i'm not really sure what you're talking about. >> well, i hope you'll become sure when you get there, because there is a fair amount of, i think, questionable behavior that has gone on that does not reflect well on the department, but i hope will get your attention. i also asked you about the special counsel investigation and to give us a clear exposition of how that memo came to be. who you talked to when, who was involved in it. there were a number of questions in that letter that at this point you have not answered. you have, i gather, told the chairman the names of some dozen or so people who you contacted, as i understand it, once the memo was written, but it's not clear. do you have any objection to answering the questions that i wrote as questions for the record so that the committee can understand who you worked with, who you talked with about this idea, who you worked with in preparing the memo, who helped

you with things like citations that people at your level often don't do yourselves, and where things were vetted and so forth. >> no, i have no objection to that. just to be clear, no one helped me write the memo and i know how to do legal citations. which i do. >> a lot of people know how, that doesn't always mean -- >> i do it. >> you might want to get out of that habit. you might have other things to look at. >> i like to have some fun in life. >> if you think citations are fun, you're not going to have the problem some other nominees have had. my letter to you also asked about the borque order that sent out a series of protections for the then-independent counsel operation. do you have any objection to any of those rules or principles applying, and should we see

those rules and principles, which i gave to you then as being more or less adopted into the statement that you made earlier about your protection of the mueller investigation from political interference? >> i looked at them. i think the current regime is what i'm happy with. in other words, i wouldn't change the current rule. those rules were put in place at the end of the clinton administration. and sort of, i think, reflects the back-on-back experience of the reagan-bush years, then the clinton years, then sort of the justice department's thinking under the clinton administration is how to balance all the equities, and i think it's working well. >> anything that you would disagree with in the so-called bor kwur borque rules, i would ask you to explain that in a follow-up.

>> okay. >> also in my letter to you, i expressed my concern that mr. whitaker was paid $1.2 million through what i considered to be a front group that has very little reality to it, and that the funding that came to that front group to pay him the million dollars came through another entity that is essentially an identity laundering operation that has no independent business operation. and the result of all this is that somebody out there arranged to get over a million dollars to mr. whitaker, and we have no idea who that somebody is. as i mentioned to you in our conversation, i don't see how the department can do a proper recusal and conflict analysis for somebody when the player who

delivered the million dollars is still hidden behind the curtain. is that something that you will help us fix? >> well, first, i don't think there was anything wrong done -- >> we don't know that yet because we don't know what the facts are. >> but just the facts you said doesn't necessarily mean there was anything wrong done. what you're saying is if the ultimate financial backers are behind some entity and the current ethics laws require only the reporting of the entity, you're not really sure where the money is coming from. and that -- you know, i think that raises a very interesting point that i think i would like to review with the ethics people and experts in even oge to talk about that. the more i thought about it, the more i thought the trick is going to be deciding what kind of entities and how far back you go, because that can be said of a lot of different kinds of

entities. and sometimes -- >> if the department's money laundering folks looked at this operation, they would see it as almost amateurish and simple and something quite easy to penetrate, and it would be quite easy simply to ask mr. whitaker what he knew, to ask whoever is still at fact what they knew and to ask the donor's trust to cough up the entity of the donor and then you can do your homework. and if they refuse to do that, nobody is doing their job at the highest levels of government if they refuse to provide those disclosures. >> like i said, my first consideration is always where do you draw the line, and also what are the implications for other kinds of entities? there are membership groups and first amendment interests, and you don't want to disclose memberships -- >> and my point is i think if your money laundering folks looked at that, they would be

able to show it's something a little different than that. my time is expired. see you on the second round. thank you. >> filling in for senator crews next. >> thank you. mr. barr, i want to commend you for stepping forward. thank you very much. and i want to say thank you for your family as well for being so supportive in this endeavor. i'm really pleased to have all of you here, so thank you for doing that. mr. barr, later this month, i do plan on reintroducing sara's law which is a bill that would require the detention of illegal aliens who have been charged with a crime that resulted in the death or serious injury, bodily injury, of another person. that sounds pretty commonsense, but i'll give you a little background. this bill is named after sara root. she was a resident of council bluffs, iowa, and sara was killed by an alien who was

driving drunk. that alien had a blood alcohol content of more than three times the legal limit, yet he was allowed to post bond and has not been seen since. it's important to me that congress act to close these loopholes in our immigration system and do better to enforce the laws that are already existing on the books. and i know that attorney general sessions, he had a real passion for this, and he had a strong record of trying to make sure that we're correcting wrongs in the system. how do you, as attorney general, plan on making sure that we are restoring the rule of law in our immigration system? >> well, first that sounds like a very commonsense bill and something that i would certainly be inclined to support. i think one of our major problems, as the president says, is that the immigration laws

just have to be changed. and to provide sensible and commonsense ways of processing immigration and claims of asylum. right now -- this goes back 27 years. we were facing exactly the same kind of problem, maybe on a smaller scale. but congress has to -- where people are abusing the asylum system, they're coming in, they're being coached as to what to say, then once they come in, we don't have the facilities to keep them and they're released into the population. this was a big abuse, as i say, 27 years ago and it's gotten worse. we need to change the laws to stop that kind of abuse and enable us to run a lawful

immigration swrm we process people into the country who are entitled to come into the country, and say we keep out those who are flouting our laws. it's not overdue, and the president is right, that until we're able to do that, we're just not going to be able to get control over illegal immigration, and it creates a lot of unsafe conditions for many people. >> absolutely. and i appreciate your thoughts on that. this is a very important issue. i think all of us understand that immigration is so vital to our country, but it has to be done in the right manner. and for those that are causing bodily injury and death to those here in the united states, we want to make sure that they are brought to justice. and in this case, that illegal undocumented was not brought to justice. and i feel a lot of empathy for

that family. i'll move to another situation that's really important to iowans. according to the department of health and human services, after drug dealing, human trafficking is tied with it as the most criminal action in the world. it generates $2.5 billion each year. the department of justice has said that 83% of sex trafficking victims identified in the united states are u.s. citizens with the average age of a victim being between 12 and 14 years. 12 and 14 years. since 2007, there have been over 300 cases of human trafficking in iowa alone, and iowa is a very rural state. 300 cases. that's very concerning to my constituents back home. what do you see as the main contributor to human trafficking here in the united states, and

then how can the doj impact and combat and prevent those heinous crimes? >> this is an area that frankly wasn't on the radar when i was there. it's going to point to an area of criminality that i know the department of justice is focused on and have put in place various programs and entities within the department to focus on it and work with state and local law enforcement on it. i'm not sure what the major contributor to it is. it's an area that i'm going to have to study when i get into the department and see what are the factors contributing to it. >> okay. i appreciate that. and as i mentioned in my

question as well, drugs and drug trafficking, that is also a very, very big industry. and in fiscal year 2017, 65% of drug-related prison sentences in iowa were related to methamphetamine. we talk a lot about the opioid crisis, but in iowa it still is meth. in 2016, iowa reported over 1,500 founded child abuse reports related to methamphetamine being found in the child's body. according to the dea, most of the meth available in the united states is being produced in mexico and smuggled across our southern border. how do you see the situation at our southern border contributing to the prevalence of controlled substance use here in the united states? >> well, as has been pointed out earlier, it is the major avenue by which drugs come into the

country. heroin, fentanyl, all the serious drugs are coming across that border. and, again, i feel it is a critical part of border security that we need to have barriers on the border. we need a barrier system on the border to get control over the border. and i think obviously there are some places that more the traffic comes over than others, but unless you have a system across the border, you're not going to be able to deal with it because you'll just displace it. if you build a barrier in one place, you'll just displace it to another. so we need a barrier system across the border, and part of that is illegal immigration, but a big part of it also is preventing the influx of drugs. >> absolutely. and you stated earlier that,

really, the head of the snake lies outside of the united states. is there a way that doj can be working with additional ideas, methodology, with other departments p that you might think would help? >> yes. you know, this is an area, again, because i'm out of the government, i don't know how it's functioning, how the drug war is being coordinated, but i think justice can play a big role in pushing for partners like the state department, defense department, the intelligence agencies and so forth to help deal with this. it's not -- to me not just a law enforcement problem, it's a national security problem. >> and you mentioned as well the situation on the border where we do need barriers in place to control the influx of -- whether it's drugs, human trafficking,

gun trafficking, so forth. do you believe that sanctuary cities play a role in harboring some of those activities? >> yes, i do. i think there are a number of sort of -- you know, of factors that have an hydraulic effect in that they pull people into the united states or induce them to take the hazards of coming into the united states, coming up hundreds of miles through mexico and so forth. and things like sanctuary cities where they feel like they'll be able to come up and hide and be protected is one of those factors that i think is irresponsible because it attracts the illegal aliens coming in. and obviously i think that the

main problem with sanctuary cities is they're not giving us information about criminals they have in their custody. this is not chasing after, you know, families or anything like that, this is going after criminals who the state and local law enforcement have in custody and not allowing us to take custody of them and get them out of the country. that's the problem with sanctuary cities. >> correct, which could be the situation that edwin majia, who killed sara root. we would love to see that young man brought to justice. thank you very much for your time. >> thank you. just follow-up on that, senator klobuchar, don't count this against her time. you say you want access to people who have committed crimes or are accused of committing crimes outside a status violation? >> that's right, senator. >> senator klobuchar? >> thank you. thank you, mr. barr. i take it as a positive that

your grandson has gotten out a pad and pen to take notes while i ask questions. i'm also impressed by your daughters, and that they all chose to go into public service, but as you know, employees in the justice department are either furloughed or they are working without pay. i have talked pto a number of them at home and it's an outrage. very briefly, what do you have to say to them? >> i would like to see a deal reached where congress recognizes that it's important to have border security and that parts of it need barriers. >> and you know in a bill that was passed there was literally billions of dollars for border security back in 2013? >> i'm generally aware of that.

>> and also that we had an agreement earlier last year which would have allowed the d.r.e.a.m.ers to stay legally that also had money for border security? >> the point is we need money right now for border security, including barriers and walls and slats and other things, anything that makes sense in different areas of the border. >> in different areas. that's a good point. so president george h.w. bush said back in 1980 that he didn't want six and eight-year-old kids to feel like they were living outside the law. you were his attorney. he also said immigration was not just a link to america's past but it's a bridge to america's future. do you agree with those statements? >> yes. as i think i said, i think legal immigration -- we have a great system, potentially. i think it's needs reforming, but legal immigration has been

great for the country. >> and that's why we're working on that comprehensive reform. i want to briefly turn to fbi leadership. the president has made statements accusing the fbi of making politically motivated decisions. many of us up here and in the senate have confidence in director wray and leadership at the fbi and believe they can do their jobs without politics getting in the way. do you agree with that? >> if i'm confirmed, i'm looking forward to getting to know chris wray. from what i know, i think very highly of him. >> okay, thank you. in the memo from back in june -- the one comment senator grassley made, he talked about how much the mueller investigation was costing and did a little googling here. there was a cnbc report that it could actually bring in more money than it cost because of the wealthy people being prosecuted, that manafort's assets could be well over 40 million. i don't know if that includes that ostrich jacket. but do you think that's possible

based on your experience with white collar crime? >> i don't know enough about it. >> okay. in your memo, you talked about the comey decision, and you talked about obstruction of justice and you already went over that, which i appreciate. you wrote on page 1 that a president persuading a person to commit perjury would be obstruction. is that right? >> yes. well, any person who persuades another. >> okay. you also said that a president or any person convincing a witness to change testimony would be obstruction. is that right? >> yes. >> and on page 2 you said a president deliberately impairing the integrity or availability of evidence would be an obstruction. is that correct? >> yes. >> so what if a president told a witness not to cooperate with an investigation or hinted at a pardon? >> i would have to know the

specific facts. >> okay. and you wrote on page 1 that if a president knowingly destroys or alters evidence, that would be obstruction? >> yes. >> so what if the president drafted a misleading statement to conceal the purpose of a meeting without the obstruction? >> i would have to know the specifics. >> that you would seek the advice of career ethics officials in the department of justice for any recusal? and i appreciate that. and you said in the past that you commended attorney general sessions for following the advice of those ethics lawyers. but you didn't commit today to following that advice. is that right? >> i didn't commend him for following the advice as the agency had. he's the one responsible for making the recusal decision. i don't know why he said -- locked himself into following

the advice. that's an abdication of his own responsibility. >> so what do you think of what acting deputy attorney general whitaker did when he recused himself out of an abundance of caution? >> i haven't seen the advice he got and i don't know the specific facts. but abundance of caution suggests that it could have gone either way. >> you committed to recuse yourself from matters involving the law firm where you currently work. are you aware of any of your firm's clients who are in any way connected to the special counsel's investigation? >> i'm not -- i'm not aware. to tell you the truth, i'm of counsel there and i have one client which i'm representing and i don't pay very much attention to -- >> you can supplement your

answer. >> i will do that. >> will you commit to make public all the report conclusions, mueller report, even if some of the evidence supporting those conclusions can't be made public? >> that certainly is my goal and intent. it's hard for me to conceive of a conclusion that would run afoul of the regs that are current in the law. >> this is a bill that senator graham and senator harris and i introduced. >> i don't know what's a good idea or a bad idea right now because i haven't gotten into this area -- >> i'll just tell you paper ballots are a good idea and we can talk about it later. audits along the lines of

voting, state election officials in north carolina, as you know, contacted the justice department about the integrity of their elections. the justice department may have failed to take action in a timely manner. what steps would you take to make sure these failures don't occur again? >> not specifically with respect to north carolina, you're talking generally? >> uh-huh. >> yeah. as i say, i want to make one of my priorities the integrity of elections. and so this is not an area i have been involved with deeply before, and when i get to the department if i'm confirmed, i'm going to start working with the people and making sure those kinds of things don't -- >> part of this concern is voting rights and our concern about some of the changes in department policy, and i hope you will seriously look at that. because the last thing we should be doing is suppressing voting, and that is what we've been seeing under this current administration.

my dad was a reporter, so i grew up knowing the importance of a free press. we obviously have the tragic case of a journalist who worked right here at the "washington post," jamal khashoggi, and it's of particular concern. i want to ask you something i asked attorney general sessions. if you're confirmed, will the justice department jail reporters for doing their jobs? >> i know there are guidelines in place, and i can conceive of situations where, as a last resort, and where a news organization has run through a red flag or something like that, knows that they're putting out stuff that will hurt the country, there could be a situation where someone would be

held in contempt, but -- >> well, attorney general sessions said he was going to look at potentially changing those rules at one point, so i would like you to maybe respond in writing to this. because that was very concerning. last, when you and i were in my office, we talked about your work with time warner with this major merger on appeal from the justice department, and i just wanted you to commit today to what you committed to me in the office, that you would recuse yourself from any matters regarding that appeal. >> absolutely. >> and as you know, you were on the board of time warner at the time, and you signed a sworn affidavit questioning whether the justice department's decision to block the merger was politically motivated given -- and this is from the affidavit -- the president's prior public animus toward the merger. are you talking here about his view on cnn? what did you mean by prior public animus?

>> i'm sorry, could you repeat that? >> sure. you were on the board of time warner and you signed a sworn affidavit questioning whether the justice department's decision to block the merger was politically motivated given the president's prior public animus toward the merger. so what did you mean by that? >> the affidavit speaks for itself in that at that meeting, i was concerned that the antitrust division was not engaging with some of our arguments, and i got concerned that they weren't taking the merits as seriously as i hoped they would. but i have no -- i'm not sure why they acted the way they did. >> okay. very good. i'll ask you more on antitrust

policy in the second round. i appreciate the discussion on that in that it's very porch important. thank you very much. >> senator hawley did a good thing allowing senator ernst to go, because no good deed goes unpunished here, but we do have a credit with the chairman, so i appreciate that. senator crews, you're next. >> we're going to take a quick break. you're watching the questioning of william barr. he is the next choice to be the attorney general up on capitol hill. back to our questioning in just a moment.

this is a very difficult job. failure is not an option.a. more than half of employees across the country bring financial stress to work. if you're stressed out financially at home, you're going to be too worried to be able to do a good job. i want to be able to offer all of the benefits that keep them satisfied. it is the people that is really the only asset that you have. put your employees on a path to financial wellness with prudential. bring your challenges. the follow up cat scan showed that it had gone to her liver. we needed a second opinion. that's when our journey began

with cancer treatment centers of america. one of our questions was, how are we going to address my liver? so my doctor said i think we can do both surgeries together. i loved that. now my health is good. these people are saints. ha, they're saints. cancer treatment centers of america. appointments available now. a lot will happen in your life. wrinkles just won't. neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair's derm-proven retinol works so fast, it takes only one week to reveal younger looking skin. neutrogena® let's see, aleve is than tylenol extra strength. and last longer with fewer pills. so why am i still thinking about this? i'll take aleve. aleve. proven better on pain. with a $500,000 life insurance policy. how much do you think it cost him? $100 a month?

$75? $50? actually, duncan got his $500,000 for under $28 a month. less than a dollar a day. his secret? selectquote. in just minutes, a selectquote agent will comparison shop nearly a dozen highly-rated life insurance companies, and give you a choice of your five best rates. duncan's wife cassie got a $750,000 policy for under $22 a month. give your family the security it needs at a price you can afford.

we return now to our special coverage. senator crews now questioning the president's pick for attorney general, william barr. >> to me a rule is exactly that, that we don't allow special rules to go into effect for a particular individual. a rule has to be universalized. anything we do against a has to be universalized across anybody who is similarly situated. that's our basic protection, and to me that's what the rule of law is. >> so i don't want to see a republican department of justice, or a democratic department of justice, i don't want to see a republican fbi or a democratic fbi. what we should see, what the american people have a right to see and a right to expect is a

department of justice that's committed to and faithful to the constitution and the laws regardless of political party and a corollary to that is a department that is willing to hold anyone who commits criminal conduct accountable regardless of that individual's political party or whatever partisan interests there might be. would you agree with that characterization? >> yes, senator. >> i would note as well during the previous administration, there was concern by many, including me on this committee, that the previous administration, and in particular, the irs, had targeted individual citizens in citizen groups for exercising their first amendment rights and had abused its power in doing so. the current justice department -- i've been dissatisfied with their -- the

degree of scrutiny they have given to that potential abuse of power, and i'm going to ask you going forward if you are confirmed to examine that conduct and ensure that if laws were broken that individuals are held accountable. let me shift to a different topic. one of the most important safeguards of our libertys ies the bill of rights. and the attorney general has a unique responsibility defending the constitution. can you share for this committee in your view the importance of free speech, of the protections that the first amendment provides to americans to speak and even to speak on popular or politically disfavored topics. >> i think free speech is at the core of our system because we

believe in the democratic process and power shifting through the processes of voting by an informed electorate. and free speech is foundational to the ability to have a democratic process. the framers, i think, believe the ndiadialect and the crowdin ideas in the marketplace is the way to arrive at the truth, and that is one function. another function of free speech is that it's the substitute for other means of settling differences. in some ways it's a safety valve. people are allowed to speak their mind and persuade their neighbors of their position.

and i think that performs a very important function in keeping the peace within a community. and if speech is suppressed, it can lead to the building up of pressures within society that sometimes can be explosive. >> how about your views on religious liberty, and would you share your thoughts on the importance of the religious liberty protections in the first amendment in terms of protecting our diverse and pluralistic society? >> i think the framers believe that the -- our system -- they said that our system only works if the people are in a position to control themselves. our government is an experiment in how much freedom we can allow the people without