And overnight while the casket was in the rotunda, according to abc, close family members and staffers took turns sitting vigil overnight while lewis lies in state in the rotunda. Also happening on capitol hill today, the attorney general, william barr, will be testifying before the house judiciary about his performance. Well begin a conversation on that. What do you think about mr. Barrs performance as attorney general . Do you agree with him at 2027480000 is your number. Disagree, 2027482001. You can also text us at 2027488003. Or join us on twitter and facebook. Com cspan. Joining us on the phone is todd, a Legal Affairs staff writer with cq roll call. Remind our viewers why this hearing is taking place. Hi, good morning. Well, this is basically something that used to happen all the time and does happen all the time. Its an oversight hearing. And you have the house, which is the closest representative to the people of the United States in the government and they get a chance to bring in a Trump Administration official and have him sit there and answer questions. Its going to take about four or five hours to go through all of the members of this committee. Get about five minutes to ask him. And this is something that congress does routine ly. This used to happen frequently, but u for barr, this is his first journey to the house u Judiciary Committee to testify. He was previously attorney general and he didnt appear. This time, he has been back and forth with the democrats for about a year. Trying to, the democrats have been trying to get him in. So this is a lot of, so its going to be a vigorous hearing today. Tick off some of those topics that democrats are likely to address. We can drill down later, but just remind our viewers, what are some of the big items that democrats will be asking the attorney general about . Yeah, absolutely. You could drill down into each of these for an entire hearing on their own, but theres many. I think theres basically three areas of questions for democrats. All of them are sort of going to focus on what they say are barrs support for trumps reelection and personal interests. The first, the first sort of bucket are doj actions that are happening now. Theres the federal agents in portland with the protestors and riots up there. Theres barrs role in clearing protestors from Lafayette Park just outside of the white house. Ahead of sort of that famous photo op of the president holding a bible. There was the removal of a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of new york where there are several trump related investigations going on. Theres barrs comments about mail in ballots and fraud in the upcoming election. Theres immigration enforcements. Actions that have been taken recently. I know democrats are concerned about lack of civil rights enforcement. The doj stepping into challenges to covid related closure orders from governors across the state as we deal with the pandemic. Id also think another bucket is the positions that the doj has taken in court. The top one there is the obama care when congress eliminated a penalty for the individual mandate, the Justice Department is now arguing that the entire 2010 Health Care Law should fall. Theyre also fighting at the supreme court,court, the judici committees request to see more grand jury materials from the mueller probe. The doj is currently fighting a Committee Subpoena for don mcgahn to testify. And theres cases that have connections to trump that are all over the news, the dropped prosecution of former National Security adviser Michael Flynn that barr and the doj sought a reduced instance for, trump ally roger stone for convictions that included lying to congress. Theres a lot of things that democrats have to talk about stretching back to the Mueller Report which was released about 18 months ago. And William Barrs assessment of that Mueller Report . Right. Yes, thats one of the things that they have wanted to talk to him about in front of the committee for months, more than a year. And that is he came in and to the job as attorney general when the Mueller Investigation was still going. The Mueller Investigation finished and attorney general barr put out a summary first before the report came out that the democrats have said was not an accurate portrayal and that spun the publics understanding of what was in the Mueller Report. As i mentioned, so much has happened since then. That might not be a primary focus of this. There is just a whole lot going on and theres an election in 100 days. And both sides will certainly republicans on the committee and democrats on the committee will be looking to strike score some political points during these question and answer period. What will republicans on the committee focus on . Well, they have they say that the democrats are concerned about politics at the doj and republicans are also concerned about politics at the doj. But they say the democrats are going after attorney general barr because barr came into the Justice Department and started looking at the russiagate investigation and is rooting out and uncovering the political actions that happened under the Obama Administration before trump took over, when they launched the investigation into trump, trump campaign, and pushed that. And barr has been assigned a federal prosecutor to look into the origins of that investigation. We dont have any results from that yet. Barr has not said whether there may or may not be any criminal charges coming out of that probe. And so theyre going to focus on that. And barr in his Opening Statement, his prepared remarks for his Opening Statement, talked about how hes the democrats are trying to discredit him for conjuring up this narrative that hes the doing the president s bidding and thats because he was what he calls he says there was grave abuses in that russiagate investigation. And so hes coming in there ready to ready to be combative. The democrats are definitely ready to be combative and i think neither side has much motivation to play nice here. This is going to be 4 1 2 hours of vigorous questioning. Todd ruger, thank you for setting it up this morning. Appreciate the conversation. Thanks for having. We will have coverage of the house Judiciary Committee at 10 00 a. M. Eastern time, also on our website, cspan. Org or you can listen with the free cspan radio app. William barr before the house Judiciary Committee. Its your turn to let them know what you think of the Job Performance of the attorney general. You disagree with the job hes doing. Tell us why. Caller i watched some of his confirmation. I knew he would be a trump man. He does anything that trump tells him to do, the federal trooping in portland. Hes sending them to chicago. Really for no reason. Hes removing prosecutors in new york that have something to do with trump investigating trump. The doj is just not doing anything. Hes anything trump says to do, he does it. Like, when stone was let out. If it had be me or you or someone who doesnt know trump and doesnt have millions of dollars, they wouldnt have been let out of prison. He broke the law. That photoop in Lafayette Square, i dont understand why he would have them those troops to fire on civilians who were peacefully protesting, to hold up a bible . Trump dont need to be holding up a bible. He needs to be reading one, studying it. I know one thing, jesus wasnt pleased with what he done. He wasnt pleased with that. Theres new reporting on that from the Washington Post last night. National guard officers says police moved on Lafayette Square protestors. Used Excessive Force before the president s visit. An officer is contradicting claims by the attorney general and the Trump Administration that they did not speed up the clearing to make way for the president s photo opportunity minutes later. A new statement by adam demarco who now serves as a major in the d. C. National guard also casts doubt on the claims by acting police chief Gregory Monahan that violence by protestors spurred park police to clear the area at that time with aggressive tactics. He said that demonstrators were behaving peacefully and the tear gas deployed was excessive use of force. They believe the clearing operation would happen after 7 00 p. M. Curfew, but it was accelerated after attorney general william barr and others appeared in the park around 6 00 p. M. The park police chief says that the operation was conducted so that a fence might be erected around the park. Demarco said the fencing materials did not arrive after 9 00 p. M. And the fence wasnt built until later that night. Demarcos account of events reveals for the first time the details of the visit that general mark milley made to Lafayette Square before the move on protestors and the warning he gave his troops. Milley who had arrived at the park warned demarco to keep officers from going overboard. He told me to ensure that the personnel remained calm, adding that we were there to respect the demonstrators First Amendment right. Its likely to be brought up at todays hearing. Lets go to texas. You agree with the job of mr. Barr. Good morning to you. Caller good morning. I think that the attorney general has had his work cut out from him from the beginning, every investigation that hes had to field and especially with the Michael Flynn case and what hes doing with that. And thats something that hell take a lot of questions for today. And i really just dont envy being in that room with everyone just staring you down like that. Ready to ask you about all of these things that really the attorney general would do and defend because just the mike flynn case is so abrupt and obviously politically influenced. So i think hes doing a great job and does not really get enough respect for what he does. Its unfair for attorney general to be in that witness chair, and her words, stare down by the house Judiciary Committee members. There are several of them on that panel. The testimony begins at 10 00 a. M. Eastern time right here on cspan. Let me correct myself. Right here on cspan, 10 00 a. M. Eastern time. Also on our website and if you want to listen on the, go you can download the free cspan radio app. The hill newspaper has this headline about barrs Opening Statement. Barr expected to blast democrats for efforts to discredit him in upcoming hearing. Reporters have been given the attorney generals opening stateme statement. From that, the attorney general is going to say, ever since i made it clear that i was going to do everything i could to get to the bottom of the grave abuses involved in the bogus russiagate scandal, many of the democrats on this committee have attempted to discredit me by conjuring up a narrative that im simply the president s feedback factotum. Paul in connecticut, you disagree with the job in a the attorney general is doing. Good morning. Caller very terrible attorney general. A piece that came out this morning outlines three areas of grave concern, measures that the ag barr have taken to politicize the position, the independent position of the attorney general, the biggest Law Enforcement officer in the United States. Lafayette park, i thought, was a turning point because trumps own henchmen esper, the department of defense that tagged along with the photoop after the protestors were cleared, he came out very forcefully and admitted that he shouldnt have been there. The ag is supposed to be above reproach and what we have seen is a further deterioration of the rule of the law set up to protect all people. And the written testimony is out from barr. Typical written testimony of the major demarco from the national guard. By the way, they stood down and they were there basically to protect the protestors. However, the head of the park police lied about the use of violence, frozen Water Bottles and such thrown at them by the protestors. He lied about using tear gas. When you read demarcos testimony, its clear that that happened. If we cant trust our Law Enforcement officials, these are para militaries attached to various departments in the u. S. Government. And when they are politicized, number one, when they are politicized, its dangerous. Number two, when they lie and theyre not truthful about policing, that is a symptom of a corrupt system. Okay, paul. Go ahead and finish your thought, paul. It extends into our local policing. The examples set by barr is very powerful. And, you know, last week the president made a remark that reached out to local Law Enforcement, like they would break ranks from civilian control when the feds go into these locals and cities. Very dangerous. Paul, at the same time that william barr is testifying and answering questions about what you just brought up, the House Natural Resources Committee is going to be hearing from the head of the park police about what happened at Lafayette Park. And that will have well have coverage of that live on cspan3 and our website and also on our radio app. So you can be youll be able to toggle back and forth between this hearing about specifically about that park incident with the head of the park police and william barr getting questioned about it as well. Heres what the attorney general had to say at a News Conference last month defending the clearing of the protestors at Lafayette Park. Unfortunately because of the difficulty in getting appropriate forces, units into place by the time they were able to move our perimeter up, there had been a large number of protestors had assembled on 8th street. There were projectiles being thrown and the group was becoming increasingly unruly and the operation they were asked three times if they would move back one block. They refused. And we proceeded to move our perimeter out to i street. It is true that the metropolitan police have a lot of experience in dealing with demonstrations. But we have a lot of federal this is the federal city. Its the seat of the federal government. Many of the buildings, as you know, and facilities here, and the monuments are the responsibility of the federal government. And the proceedings and process of the federal government take place here. And so when you have a largescale civil disturbance that is damaging federal property, threatening federal property, threatening federal Law Enforcement officers, threatening the officials in government and their offices, and our great monuments, it is the responsibility of the federal government to render that protection and we do so in close coordination with the metropolitan police department. William barr defending his decision at Lafayette Square park, one of his decisions that will be questioned by the house Judiciary Committee here when they gavelled in right here on cspan. And jerry nadler who heads the house Judiciary Committee last month talked about the removal of u. S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman and other instances where he says the attorney general has politicized the department of justice and thats why hes bringing him before the committee today. Its part of a clear and dangerous pattern of conduct that began when mr. Barr took office and continues to this day. Mr. Barrs actions make clear that in his department of justice, the president s allies get special treatment. The president s enemies are targeted for extra scrutiny and the needs of the American People and the needs of justice are generally ignored. Mr. Barrs practice of abusing the department to shield the president and his allies goes back to the beginning of his tenure at the doj. When the special counsel had completed his investigation, the attorney general mischaracterized the special counsels findings and he did so on the president s behalf. Among other deceptions, mr. Barr pretended that compelling evidence of obstruction of justice, including evidence that the president may have lied directly to the special counsel, simply did not exist. Mr. Barrs deception seems blatant. But dont take my word for it. The special counsel wrote to mr. Barr directly to complain about the inaccuracies. A federal judge later said that mr. Barrs inconsistencies were so misleading and could not trust the departments assurances to the court about the contents of the Mueller Report. That was chairman nadler last month, his reasons for wanting to hear from the attorney general today. The attorney general in his Opening Statement is arguing this, when some noteworthy event occurs that potentially has legal ramifications such as leaks of classified information, potential civil rights abuses by police or illegal price fixing, the president has occasionally and appropriately confirmed that the department is aware of the matter. But the handling of the matter and my decisions on criminal matters have been left to my independent judgment, based on the law and fact, without any direction or interference from the white house or anyone outside the