House Democrats Madeleine Dean (Penn.) and Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) accused Attorney General William Barr of being sexist and hostile during his contentious Judiciary Committee testimony on Tuesday.
Democrats repeatedly interrupted Barr at the hearing and condemned him as corrupt, racist, and dangerous, but Dean said Wednesday that Barr was "disrespectful" and particularly mistreated women.
"We have to hold him accountable to the American people," Dean said on MSNBC. "You saw his affect yesterday. He was disrespectful, spoke over top of every one of us. In particular, he spoke over women. He was flanked by at least 10 staffers, not a person of color among them.... It was so disrespectful, the way he approached Congress, the way he approached our committee."
The Washington Free Beacon compiled a montage of Democrats repeatedly saying they were "reclaiming my time" during their testy interactions with Barr on Tuesday. On several occasions, Republicans on the Judiciary Committee gave Barr time during their questioning periods to respond to Democratic charges.
Jayapal allowed Barr to speak for less than 60 seconds during their six-minute exchange, and he never spoke longer than 10 seconds without being interrupted by her. Yet she told CNN that she had to control her time, because otherwise Barr might testify too much.
"Every witness knows that the way to get away from answering questions is to just be very slow in your answers, to thank the Congress members for that excellent question, to not answer, to obfuscate, because you only have five minutes," she said. "You have to take control of your time, because if you don't, the witness will do it."
She added Barr was a "hostile witness."
Jayapal used much of her time to criticize Barr over the federal dispersal of protesters in Lafayette Park outside the White House on June 1. She accused him of a double standard by not similarly dispersing right-wing protesters at the Michigan State Capitol in May during demonstrations against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D.) and her coronavirus lockdown orders.
Barr noted the White House is a federal building while Michigan's capitol falls under the state's jurisdiction, but Jayapal interrupted to charge him with prioritizing Trump's "agenda."