WASHINGTON — A polarized Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the nomination of William P. Barr to be President Trump’s second confirmed attorney general Thursday, as Republicans and Democrats split over his views on executive authority and the special counsel’s ongoing Russia investigation.

Barr will now go before the full Republican-controlled Senate, where he is expected to be confirmed and sworn into office as soon as next week. If confirmed, he would promptly assume responsibility for the special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller into possible ties between Trump, his associates, and Russia, and whether the president obstructed justice.

Barr will get at least one Democratic vote in the full Senate. Senator Doug Jones, Democrat of Alabama, announced his support Thursday. But the committee’s debate and subsequent 12-to-10 party-line vote to endorse Barr to the full Senate revealed how fraught the politics around the Justice Department have become after two years of unrelenting attacks by Trump.

Even so, many Democrats are privately eager for Barr to be confirmed, believing that he would be an improvement over Matthew G. Whitaker, the current acting attorney general who fiercely loyal to Trump.

Whitaker is scheduled to testify Friday before the House Judiciary Committee, but Thursday he said he would not appear unless the committee assured him he would not be subpoenaed. The House committee voted along party lines Wednesday to prepare just such a subpoena in case Whitaker backed out.

NEW YORK TIMES