So did Bill Barr commit "perjury"

As usual, the main issue is that certain people don't stick to the facts

So in a nutshell Sen. Crist (D-FL) asked two separate questions of William Barr. Here is the exact wording, so there is no confusion:

“Reports have emerged recently, general, that members of the special counsel’s team are frustrated at some level with the limited information included in your March 24th letter, that it does not adequately or accurately, necessarily, portray the report’s findings. Do you know what they’re referencing with that?”

“You made a conclusion on the question of obstruction of justice that was not contained in the Mueller report. ... Did Bob Mueller support your conclusion?”

Now first and foremost, if you heard these questions are different from what I posted, then you heard wrong and were probably lied to.  The fact of the matter is that there was one question asked about a media story that "staffers" were frustrated, and there is another question asking if Mueller specifically questioned or supported Barr's conclusion on obstruction. From what I see, people are attempting to somehow merge the two, in order to make a point that doesn't exist.

First question:

There are two problems with the first question. The first would be that the letter he got from Mueller did not specifically refer to how each individual staffer felt and it is very unlikely Barr sat down with any of these staffers (much less all of them) to get a feel exactly what their issue was. Secondly, it would also be impossible for Barr to know where these reports came from, what specific staffers (if any) may or may not have been interviewed, and if these stories were specifically in regards to the letter or if the reports were referring to other things. In fact, one would believe that if the media reports were in regards to the letter, that the letter itself would have been mentioned. The fact that it wasn't, suggests that these reports were in regards to staffers complaining to the media (separate from the letter).

Had Barr been represented by an attorney, the attorney would have objected on two separate issues. The first would be lack of Authentication that the News articles were real (unless someone from Barr's team had stipulated to the accuracy of these reports). The second would be on the grounds of Speculation. How can Barr (or anyone) possibly know the thoughts and beliefs of unnamed staffers who were being referred to in a media story. If you cannot even identify who these unhappy staffers are, how can you know what  an unknown person is thinking?

So Barr did exactly the only legal thing he could do, which was say he could not say for sure either what the Media reports were referring to, or specifically what these particular "staffers" were feeling when they talked to the media. There is no obligation for him to mention a letter in this situation, but he did use the information from that letter as his best guess:

“No, I don’t. I think — I think — I suspect that they probably wanted more put out, but in my view, I was not interested in putting out summaries or trying to summarize, because I think any summary, regardless of who prepares it, not only runs the risk of, you know, being underinclusive or overinclusive, but also, you know, would trigger a lot of discussion and analysis that really should await everything coming out at once.”

Again, how can William Barr know exactly what these media reports were referring to, or what nonspecific people were upset about it. He can't. What he can and did do, is speculate based on what he knew from the letter he got from Mueller.

But to Barr's bigger defense, he also answered a different more specific question regarding what he thought Mueller might have been frustrated by. To that question, Barr stated that Mueller:

“wanted to put out the full executive summaries that are incorporated in the report.”

So in essence when asked specifically about Mueller, he provided pretty much the direct quote that Mueller provided for him. When asked about concerns of the staff as reported by the media, he says he cannot know for sure, but suspects that they wanted the same thing Mueller wanted.

These answers seem to be an accurate description. Barr states specifically what Mueller wanted, while he gets around the "speculation" objection by basically allowing everyone to understand that he was speculating rather than stating a fact about what "staffers" believed.

Second Question:

This one is simple. The letter never mentions anything about Barr's conclusion on obstruction. Nor does there appear to be any known discussion between Barr and Mueller on the subject of whether ot not Mueller objects. In fact, there is no evidence at this point that Mueller himself disagrees (only media reports that certain staffers disagree). In his own report, Mueller make it abundantly clear that proving corrupt intent was a very high bar, and that the law and the facts of the case were not clear enough to him to support recommending an indictment. So Barr answers:

“I don’t know whether Bob Mueller supported my conclusion.”

Certainly fair enough. There still is no indication from anyone, nor does the letter indicate that Mueller either supports or objects to Barr's ultimate call on obstruction.

Bottom line: 

At the end of the day Impeachment for perjury would rely on the idea that Barr should have said he absolutely knew for sure what the media reports were referring to regarding staffers, rather than just speculating what they were referring to. That is highly dubious if not downright silly.

Frustrated Democrats are simply lashing out at this point and playing politics. They understand that a media still stinging from being wrong about collusion and conspiracy would take their side an pretty much anything they decide to drudge up at this point. There is no perjury case here, no matter how hard they want to try to make it. In fact the answers were deftly answered in perhaps the best legal manner available to the Attorney General, which shouldn't surprise anyone, since he is the Attorney General.