WASHINGTON, USA- Justice chief blasts Trump and drops probe of ex-FBI official McCabe,
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US Attorney General Bill Barr on Thursday delivered a highly unusual public rebuke of Donald Trump, saying the president’s tweets were making his job at the Justice Department “impossible.”
“I have a problem with some of the tweets,” Barr said in an interview with ABC News, adding: “I cannot do my job here at the department with a constant background commentary that undercuts me.”
“I think it’s time to stop the tweeting about Department of Justice criminal cases,” said Barr.
His interview came as Trump stands accused of interfering with the sentencing recommendation for his former advisor, Roger Stone — prompting four Justice Department prosecutors to resign from the case this week.
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The outburst was all the more remarkable as Barr has emerged as a powerful defender of Trump, earning the nickname of the “president’s attorney” from critics.
Barr has been at the center of allegations that he decided — allegedly under pressure from Trump — to overrule his own prosecutors and seek a lighter prison sentence for Stone.
He has previously been criticized by Democrats and legal experts for seeming to assist Trump during the independent investigation into whether the president was helped by a Russian influence campaign during the 2016 election.
The two men are so close that there was immediate speculation that Barr’s television interview may have been more about managing public opinion than a rea
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l outcry against Trump’s alleged interference in judicial affairs.
The controversy comes about a week after the Senate acquitted Trump of impeachment charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress related to pressure on Ukraine to announce investigations, including into Trump’s political opponent Joe Biden.
Another staunch Trump ally, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, supported Barr’s comments about the tweets.
“If the attorney general says it’s getting in the way of doing his job, maybe the president should listen to the attorney general,” McConnell told Fox News.
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White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said Trump had “full faith” in Barr.
“The president wasn’t bothered by the comments at all,” she said in a statement.
That message was amplified by Trump’s National Security Advisor who insisted the president has “tremendous confidence” in Barr.
“He’s a fantastic member of the cabinet, he has a very strong relationship with the president,” Robert O’Brien told reporters at the White House.
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– Trump’s Twitter muscle –
Unlike any president before him, Trump frequently uses social media to broadcast his opinions and decisions without going through traditional statements to the media.
Grisham indicated that Barr’s comments would not change that, referring to the White House’s frequent claim that professional media organizations misrepresent Trump and therefore need to be bypassed.
“President Trump uses social media very effectively to fight for the American people against injustices in our country, including the fake news,” she said.
Trump uses Twitter in particular to make instant, high-impact interventions, often reacting to events in real time.
In the latest case, he used his Twitter pulpit to speak out in defense of veteran Republican consultant Stone.
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Stone was convicted in November of last year of lying to Congress, tampering with a witness and obstructing the House investigation into the Russia 2016 election affair.
Trump has denied that his tweets attacking the original sentence of 87 to 108 months recommended for Stone — and in support of Barr after it was reduced by more than half — amounted to political interference.
Chief Judge Beryl Howell, of the DC District Court in Washington that will sentence Stone, said in a statement that “public criticism or pressure is not a factor” in sentencing decisions.
When asked whether he had spoken with Trump about recommendations in the Stone case, Barr replied: “Never.”
“I’m happy to say that in fact the president has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case,” said Barr, who is due to testify next month to Congress, where Democrats have voiced deep concerns about his conduct in legal matters involving the president.
In the interview, Barr said he had been “surprised” by the sentencing recommendation filed by prosecutors on Monday, and was intending to “amend and clarify” the department’s position the following day — when Trump fired off his tweet.
“Once the tweet occurred the question was, ‘Now what do I do?’ Do you go forward with what you think is the right decision or do you pull back because of the tweet — and that just sort of illustrates how disruptive these tweets can be.”
Asked whether he was prepared for repercussions for speaking out against Trump, Barr replied: “Of course.”
“I’m not going to be bullied or influenced by anybody,” he said, “whether it’s Congress, newspaper editorial boards or the president, I’m going to do what I think is right.”
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Justice Dept. drops probe of ex-FBI official McCabe, a top Trump target
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department on Friday dropped its criminal investigation of a top target of President Donald Trump, former No. 2 FBI official Andrew McCabe, at the tail end of a week in which the U.S. law-enforcement agency has come under extraordinary pressure from the president.
Since he was fired by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions in March 2018, McCabe has often been a punching bag for Trump, and the department’s decision not to charge him could further stoke Trump’s ire.
Trump has spent the week criticizing prosecutors, jurors and the judge in a separate case involving his longtime political adviser, Roger Stone, raising questions about whether Trump is eroding the independence of the U.S. legal system.
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Trump was irked by the decision, said a source close to the White House. He did not comment as he left Washington for his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
McCabe criticized the Justice Department for taking two years on the case, which examined whether he misled investigators about his decision to share internal communications with a reporter during the 2016 presidential election. Prosecutors had been indicating since July that the investigation was largely complete.
“It is an absolute disgrace that they took two years and put my family through this experience for two years before they finally drew the obvious conclusion and one they could have drawn a long time ago,” he said on CNN.
U.S. Judge Reggie Walton said at a hearing in September that the delays made it seem like the department was facing political pressure.
A lifelong Republican who worked at the FBI for 20 years, McCabe played a crucial role in the bureau’s investigations of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
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In campaign speeches, interviews and tweets, Trump accused McCabe of conflicts of interest because his wife Jill McCabe, a Democrat, received donations for an unsuccessful 2015 Virginia state senate campaign from a Clinton ally.
McCabe questioned whether the decision to drop the investigation had anything to do with the ongoing fracas over Stone, a veteran Republican operative who was found guilty in November of lying to Congress, obstruction and witness intimidation.
The Justice Department’s decision to seek a lighter sentence for Stone earlier this week prompted all four prosecutors on that case to resign in apparent protest.
“Like all Americans I’ve been greatly concerned by what I’ve seen take place in the White House and in the Justice Department, quite frankly, in just the last week,” McCabe said.
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.
McCabe was fired just hours before he was due to retire, after the department’s internal watchdog issued a report saying he misled investigators from the Inspector General’s office who were trying to determine whether he had improperly shared information with a reporter.
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The Justice Department under Trump has also dropped its investigations of Clinton and declined to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey.
Trump has taken a string of aggressive actions since the Republican-controlled Senate acquitted him of impeachment charges last week.
Earlier this week, he abruptly yanked the nomination of Jessie Liu, the senior prosecutor who oversaw the Stone case and the McCabe investigation, for a new top job overseeing sanctions at the Treasury Department.
Trump said on Friday he had “the legal right” to interfere in criminal cases, despite an unusual rebuke from Attorney General William Barr, his top law enforcement official.
Barr told ABC News that Trump’s attacks made it “impossible” for him to do his job leading the Justice Department, telling ABC News in an interview: “It’s time to stop the tweeting.”
Barr said Trump had never asked him to interfere in a criminal case.
The president responded on Friday morning: “This doesn’t mean that I do not have, as President, the legal right to do so, I do, but I have so far chosen not to!” he wrote on Twitter.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Additional reporting by Brad Heath and Alexandra Alper; Editing by Andy Sullivan, Richard Chang and Dan Grebler)/ By Sarah N. Lynch
By Sarah N. Lynch,Reuters 1 hour 16 minutes ago
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