Tag: Bill Barr

Michael Flynn judge says pardon doesn’t mean ex-national security adviser is innocent

Washington Post logo

A federal judge dismissed Michael Flynn’s prosecution Tuesday after President Trump’s pardon, but said the act of clemency does not mean the former national security adviser is innocent of lying to FBI agents about his talks with the Russian government before Trump took office.

In formally ending Flynn’s three-year legal saga, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said he probably would have denied the Justice Department’s controversial effort this year to drop the case, which Democrats and many legal experts said appeared to be an attempt by Attorney General William P. Barr to bend the rule of law to help a Trump ally.

Sullivan expressed deep skepticism about the Justice Department’s stated reasons for abandoning the case, criticizing it for applying a different set of rules to Flynn, who twice pleaded guilty to lying about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador during special. Continue reading.

Senate gears up for battle over Barr’s new special counsel

The Hill logo

Attorney General William Barr is setting the stage for a Senate brawl on his way out the door with the appointment of U.S. Attorney John Durham to serve as special counsel well beyond the end of the Trump administration.

The fight over Durham, the federal prosecutor probing the origins of the 2016 Russia investigation, will be in full force once President-elect Joe Biden nominates his pick for attorney general.

Senate Republicans say Biden’s nominee to lead the Justice Department should promise not to terminate Durham, who has been investigating whether the Obama administration improperly targeted the Trump campaign in 2016 when the FBI looked into allegations of collusion between the campaign and Russian officials. Continue reading.

Barr Is Said to Be Weighing Whether to Leave Before Trump’s Term Ends

New York Times logo

The attorney general’s future came into doubt after he acknowledged that the Justice Department had not found evidence of widespread voter fraud in the president’s election loss.

WASHINGTON — Attorney General William P. Barr is considering stepping down before President Trump’s term ends next month, according to three people familiar with his thinking. One said Mr. Barr could announce his departure before the end of the year.

It was not clear whether the attorney general’s deliberations were influenced by Mr. Trump’s refusal to concede his election loss or his fury over Mr. Barr’s acknowledgment last week that the Justice Department uncovered no widespread voting fraud. In the ensuing days, the president refused to say whether he still had confidence in his attorney general.

One of the people insisted that Mr. Barr had been weighing his departure since before last week and that Mr. Trump had not affected the attorney general’s thinking. Another said Mr. Barr had concluded that he had completed the work that he set out to accomplish at the Justice Department. Continue reading.

‘Simply unthinkable’: Law officers call for halt to Trump’s executions

AlterNet logo

A group consisting of more than 90 law enforcement officials have penned a letter urging federal authorities to halt the executions President Donald Trump has scheduled throughout the final weeks of his presidency. 

In the letter, the group, which consists of “current and former prosecutors, state attorneys general, police chiefs and sheriffs” expressed concerns about the president’s actions going forward “claiming that the uncertain transition period and resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic risk undermining confidence in the criminal justice system,” according to USA Today.

“When people believe the state is executing a person, or applying the death penalty unjustly… their trust in our system of government and law enforcement is undermined,” the officials stated. Continue reading.

Trump declines to say whether he has confidence in Barr; Harris names chief of staff

Washington Post logo

President Trump declined Thursday to say whether he retains confidence in Attorney General William P. Barr, who this week undercut the president by saying he had not seen any evidence of fraud on a scale that would alter the election results.

Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Supreme Court declined to take up a challenge to the presidential election filed by Trump’s campaign, a new blow to his floundering efforts to overturn the election.

Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris named Tina Flournoy as her chief of staff and selected other key aides Thursday as the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden forged ahead with its transition to power. View the post here.

No, Barr was not part of a secret plot against President Trump.

New York Times logo

Not long after Attorney General William P. Barr said on Tuesday that the Justice Department had found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the election last month, the pro-Trump media world began circulating a falsehood about him. In this telling, Mr. Barr had been part of a plot by a secret cabal of elites against President Trump all along.

The most prominent right-wing personality who spread the baseless narrative was the Fox Business host Lou Dobbs. In his nightly show monologue on Tuesday, Mr. Dobbs said that Mr. Barr must be “either a liar or a fool or both” and suggested that he was “perhaps compromised.” Mr. Dobbs added that Mr. Barr “appeared to join in with the radical Dems and the deep state and the resistance.”

Mr. Dobbs’s unfounded accusation inspired dozens of Facebook posts and more than 14,000 likes and shares on the social network, as well as hundreds of posts on Twitter, over the past 24 hours, according to a New York Times analysis. Continue reading.

Trump administration sets wave of executions for days leading up to Biden inauguration

Washington Post logo

After nearly two decades without any federal executions, the Justice Department reversed course this summer by carrying out three death sentences in four days. Now the department is planning a similarly busy schedule of executions during the Trump administration’s final days, before a president who staunchly backs capital punishment is succeeded by one who opposes it.

The Justice Department’s push to carry out executions during the run-up to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration — including scheduling three during the week before he takes office — has drawn sharp condemnation from critics who denounced these actions during the lame-duck window. 

“It’s just unconscionable to move forward with executions at this point, in this situation,” said Shawn Nolan, a lawyer for two of the federal death-row inmates facing execution. “Joe Biden ran on a platform of not moving forward with executions. And they shouldn’t move forward with these executions during this transition period.” Continue reading.

Barr appoints special counsel in Russia probe investigation

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General William Barr has given extra protection to the prosecutor he appointed to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia probe, granting him authority to complete the work without being easily fired.

Barr told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he had appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham as a special counsel in October under the same federal regulations that governed special counsel Robert Mueller in the original Russia probe. He said Durham’s investigation has been narrowing to focus more on the conduct of FBI agents who worked on the Russia investigation, known by the code name of Crossfire Hurricane.

Under the regulations, a special counsel can be fired only by the attorney general and for specific reasons such as misconduct, dereliction of duty or conflict of interest. An attorney general must document such reasons in writing. Continue reading.

Barr says DOJ hasn’t uncovered widespread voter fraud in 2020 election

The Hill logo

Attorney General William Barr on Tuesday said there has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the election, undercutting President Trump‘s repeated baseless claims to the contrary.

“To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election,” Barr told The Associated Press in an interview.

Barr told the wire service that U.S. attorneys and FBI agents have been following up on specific complaints following the election but have yet to discover anything on a scale that would overturn President-elect Joe Biden‘s victory. Continue reading.

Justice Dept. meets Trump, Giuliani vote-fraud claims with silent skepticism

Washington Post logo

The Justice Department has met President Trump’s fantastical claims of widespread voter fraud with two weeks of skeptical silence, not taking any overt moves to investigate what Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, claims is a globe-spanning conspiracy to steal the election.

Such deafening silence from one of the government’s main enforcers of election law indicates just how little evidence there is to support the wild, wide-ranging claims made by Trump and his supporters, most notably Giuliani in a Thursday news conference held inside the Republican National Committee headquarters.

Privately, Justice Department officials have said they are willing to investigate legitimate claims of vote fraud; Attorney General William P. Barr even loosened some restrictions that might otherwise have discouraged prosecutors from doing so before results are certified. Continue reading.