Former Vice President and 2020
Democratic presidential candidate
Joe Biden on Wednesday called for Attorney General
William Barr to resign, saying that he had lost the confidence of the American people.
"I think he’s lost the confidence of the American people," Biden told a group of reporters who asked whether Barr should resign. "I think he should," he added, according to a video shared on Twitter.
Biden's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.
Barr has faced sustained scrutiny from Democrats for his handling of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on his investigation into Russian interference and whether
President Trump obstructed justice.
Several 2020 Democratic candidates called for him to resign after it was revealed that Mueller expressed frustration with how Barr initially summarized his investigation in a letter to Congress. Mueller said in a March 27 letter to Barr that the attorney general's memo failed to "fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office’s work and conclusions."
Barr has faced increasing scrutiny from Democrats since he sent his four-page summary to Congress in March on Mueller's report. The letter was widely lambasted by Democrats, who accused Barr of acting as Trump's personal attorney, rather than the American people's attorney general.
"Barr is a disgrace, and his alarming efforts to suppress the Mueller report show that he's not a credible head of federal law enforcement," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a fellow 2020 contender, tweeted. "He should resign—and based on the actual facts in the Mueller report, Congress should begin impeachment proceedings against the President."
A number of 2020 hopefuls, including Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Cory Booker (D- N.J.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) grilled the attorney general during his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on his handling of Mueller's report.
Harris and Booker, in addition to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro and former Rep. Beto O'Rourke, have said Barr should resign.