WATCH LIVE: Attorney General Barr Testifies On Justice Department Oversight

Updated at 12:15 p.m. ET

Attorney General William Barr has put the founding principles of the Justice Department "more at risk than at any time in modern history," the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee charged on Monday.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., excoriated Barr because he said the attorney general sought conflict with Americans at an unprecedented scale, including via federal law enforcement crackdowns, and has created what Nadler called a special reserve of justice for the well-connected.

"The message these actions send is clear: in this Justice Department the president's enemies will be punished. His friends will be protected — no matter the cost, no matter the cost to liberty, no matter the cost to justice," Nadler said.

Barr is a longtime political target of the panel's majority Democrats, who censured him last year during one of a number of bitter disputes over access to information and the House of Representatives' powers of oversight.

On Tuesday, Nadler said the Justice Department had become "a shadow of its former self."

Barr vehemently defended his independence, saying the president "has not attempted to interfere" in decisions related to criminal cases ... "Indeed, it is precisely because I feel complete freedom to do what I think is right that induced me serve once again as attorney general," he said.

Barr didn't show up before the panel on a previous occasion after a dispute about the conditions at the hearing. On Tuesday, he appeared after a delay caused by a car accident in which Nadler was uninjured but kept from the hearing room in Washington.

The hearing is underway now.

Barr stands his ground

The attorney general has told NPR he believes the department is separated appropriately from the White House and that he has a responsibility to make sure cases are handled correctly.

And Barr told lawmakers on Tuesday that he had no relationship with Trump before being nominated and was prepared to "slip happily into retirement" with nothing more to prove in his career. He rejected the characterization that he has embraced a role as the president's man atop the federal law enforcement apparatus.

All the same, Nadler's panel has heard from Justice Department whistleblowers and outside critics who argue that Barr's camp leans on underlings to deliver the results that it — and the White House — want.

Democrats also pressed the attorney general on Tuesday about matters involving Trump's friends, including political adviser Roger Stone, in whose case Barr interceded; former national security adviser Mike Flynn, whose charges Barr dropped.

And they faulted him for deploying federal agents to suppress protesters in Washington D.C., Portland, Oregon and elsewhere.

"The protesters aren't mobs — they're mothers and veterans and mayors," Nadler said. Real leadership, the chairman said, would involve de-escalation; "instead you use pepper spray and truncheons on American citizens."

The attorney general rejected that idea.

Federal officers are deployed to help local agencies and, in the case of Portland, to protect the federal courthouse there against what Barr called nightly attacks, he said.

Democrats said they fear that Barr is responding to orders from Trump to create nightly scenes of violence and needlessly escalate clashes with demonstrators in order to heighten the sense of danger Trump wants to program into a "law and order" reelection campaign.

Nadler asked Barr whether he and Trump have discussed the reelection campaign; although the attorney general said he preserves his official independence, he acknowledged that he has discussed it in meetings at the White House.

"I'm a member of the Cabinet and there's an election going on," he said. "The topic comes up in Cabinet meetings — it shouldn't be surprise that it comes up."

And Barr volunteered that he thought his conduct and that of the Justice Department had been appropriate with respect to Trump's friends, citing Stone and Flynn in particular.

Flynn's case was problematic, Barr argues, which is why he supported dropping the charges even after Flynn's admissions of guilt.

In the case of Stone, Barr pointed out that he oversaw the prosecution and supported it — but what Barr said he didn't support was the prospect of an excessive sentence, which he interceded to oppose in court.

"I agree the president's friends don't deserves special breaks — but they also don't deserve to be treated more harshly than everyone else," Barr said.

Allies level counter-charges

Republicans led by the panel's ranking member, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio mounted a loyal defense of Barr and Trump and also drew attention to the findings of investigations that have embarrassed the Justice Department and FBI.

Barr, in their telling, is cleaning house and getting to the bottom of what Trump's allies call wrongdoing.

"Spying," Jordan said on Tuesday, alluding to what he called the real basis for the Russia investigation. "That's why they're after you, Mister Attorney General."

Jordan also praised what he called Barr's support for police as a clear alternative to what he said were proposals by Democrats to withdraw support from law enforcement.

Some activists support directing a portion of current police budgets to other agencies, such as for mental health treatment; Trump, Jordan and Republicans have seized on the brand "defund the police" to charge that Democrats want to disestablish police departments altogether.

Nadler said Tuesday's hearing is Barr's first time before the House Judiciary Committee both in his current stint as attorney general and also from the last time he served in that role, under President George H.W. Bush.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.