The Justice Department under Attorney General William Barr has asserted itself in high-profile investigations, including GOP operative Roger Stone’s sentencing, Rudy Giuliani’s Ukraine foray, the investigation of the Trump-Russia investigators, and more, recent court filings show.
These moves come in the context of DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse released in December. The report found “significant” missteps related to the electronic surveillance of Trump campaign associate Carter Page through the FISA court. The Senate acquitted President Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in early February following months of allegations that the president pressured Ukraine to announce investigations into Joe and Hunter Biden.
In recent weeks, Barr has established new rules for launching investigations into political candidates, requiring they be approved by the heads of the FBI and DOJ. He also set up a process outside of DOJ headquarters for analyzing the information Giuliani is digging up overseas and controversially reversed the nearly decadelong prison sentence the DOJ recommended for Stone.
As a result, Barr increasingly has become the focus of harsh criticism.
“Congratulations to Attorney General Bill Barr for taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought,” Trump tweeted about Stone on Wednesday morning. “Evidence now clearly shows that the Mueller Scam was improperly brought & tainted.”
Barr took the reins at DOJ in February 2019 near the end of special counsel Robert Mueller’s two-year investigation, which concluded last April that the Kremlin interfered in a “sweeping and systematic fashion” in 2016 but didn’t establish any criminal conspiracy between Trump and Russia. The special counsel laid out ten possible instances of obstruction, but Barr concluded that Trump had not obstructed.
Trump gave Barr “full and complete authority to declassify information” in his investigation of the investigators last May, and the attorney general selected U.S. Attorney John Durham of Connecticut as his right-hand man. Following the DOJ watchdog’s FISA report, Barr said he told Durham to focus just as much on the FBI’s actions after Trump’s election as before it.
Stone, a longtime Trump adviser, was swept up in a Mueller spin-off case and found guilty on five counts of making false statements to the House Intelligence Committee during its 2017 investigation into Russian interference. Stone was also found guilty of obstructing Congress and intimidating a witness.
The DOJ’s D.C. office told the court Monday, it was recommending Stone receive up to nine years behind bars, and Trump tweeted late that night that he “cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!” The DOJ reversed itself Tuesday, and the four main prosecutors on the case, including former Mueller team members, withdrew.
The DOJ said its decision was made Monday night before Barr was aware of Trump’s position. Trump denied pressuring the DOJ.
Timothy Shea, the interim U.S. attorney for D.C. who took over as lead counsel a couple of weeks ago, walked back the “unduly high” sentence recommendation for Stone, suggesting three to four years instead. Democrats called for investigations into the DOJ’s actions. Some Republicans criticized Trump for weighing in too.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson, the Obama appointee who presided over Stone’s trial, will hand down the sentence next week.
Jessie Liu, the previous U.S. attorney who oversaw Stone’s case as well as ones against Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn and others, had her nomination to a Treasury Department perch pulled on Tuesday.
Some questions have been raised about whether Barr asserted influence over the Flynn case, given the D.C. office appearing to somewhat soften its punishment recommendation for the former Trump national security adviser. That sentencing hearing, scheduled for the end of February, was canceled by the presiding judge, Emmet Sullivan, as Flynn’s legal team battles the DOJ and seeks to withdraw his guilty plea.
Separately, during a Monday press conference, Barr said he was willing to receive information from Ukraine from Giuliani but would be careful to ensure it wasn’t disinformation.
“The DOJ has the obligation to have an open door to anybody who wishes to provide us information that they think is relevant,” Barr said.
Barr emphasized Giuliani’s Ukraine information was not being passed directly to him but handled through “an intake process in the field” so it could be “carefully scrutinized” to assess its “provenance” and “credibility.” It was later revealed that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Pittsburgh has been “quietly” reviewing records related to Ukraine for “several weeks.”
The DOJ’s Ukraine review is separate from Durham’s investigation, which is expected to wrap up by the spring or summer.
