Newt Gingrich: AG Barr’s testimony on ‘Russiagate’ will make Democrats look ’embarrassed’

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich weighed in on what he expected from Attorney General Bill Barr’s remarks on the Russiagate scandal in his first-ever appearance before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

“AG Barr is probably the most dangerous opponent the Democrats have because he has the power of the government to dig into things and to release documents that Lindsey Graham said yesterday are going to be devastating in terms of how dishonest some of the senior FBI was,” Gingrich told “Fox & Friends.”

Gingrich said that Democrats have a problem dealing with “reality.”

READ BARR’S OPENING STATEMENT

Barr will condemn the “grave abuses” in the “bogus Russiagate scandal,” while also highlighting Black-on-Black violence and defending law enforcement officers in no uncertain terms, according to a transcript of his prepared remarks obtained by Fox News on Monday night.

The attorney general’s unusually aggressive posture will be matched by similarly full-throated arguments from GOP lawmakers on the panel, including ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Fox News is told. GOP lawmakers plan to highlight former Attorney General Eric Holder’s remark that he was then-President Barack Obama’s “wingman,” noting their close relationship to preempt accusations that Barr is President Trump’s yes-man. A strategy document from the GOP side also suggests they will defend the Roger Stone commutation and the recent controversial removal of a U.S. attorney.

“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 I am simply the president’s factotum who disposes of criminal cases according to his instructions,” Barr is expected to say at the outset of his remarks. “Judging from the letter inviting me to this hearing, that appears to be your agenda today.”

Barr will go on to deny that Trump has improperly interfered with any of his decisions, before pointing to statistics showing progress on racial-justice issues, according to his prepared remarks.

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Gingrich said that Barr is a “very, very smart” man whom the Democrats do not want to challenge in the Russiagate scandal. Gingrich called the Russiagate scandal “the equivalent to Watergate” and “very sick stuff that should worry Americans.”

“He knows what he’s talking about, he’s a very good lawyer and if they want to play games with him, my guess is he’s going to make them look pretty embarrassed by the time today is over. … We now have proof that the New York Times and the Washington Post have Pulitzer Prizes for printing lies. You have proof that senior FBI agents in an act that really is treason were trying to destroy the president of the United States and breaking the law to try to destroy him,” Gingrich said.

Gingrich added, “You have a pretty bit of that President Obama and Vice President Biden knew what was going on and Biden was actually encouraging them and trying to find ways to legally go after Trump … but you’re dealing with a propaganda media that won’t admit there is violence in Seattle, Portland and Oakland. They won’t admit that the FBI had leaders that were criminals so it is an interesting tension between reality and the power of the left to hide them.”