House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler questioned a decision to allow President Trump’s personal lawyer to send information on Joe Biden that may be incriminating to the Justice Department through what he called a “back channel.”
Nadler wrote to Attorney General William Barr on Monday to complain that Barr is permitting Rudy Giuliani to provide information to the DOJ about his own investigative findings in Ukraine. The New York Democrat said the intake process Barr is facilitating “would seem to be a significant departure from those traditional channels” and “raises serious questions about a conflict of interest” for the DOJ and Barr.
The letter follows Barr’s announcement on Monday that the DOJ has an “open door” for Giuliani to report his Ukraine findings.
“We can’t take anything we receive from the Ukraine at face value,” Barr said at a press conference. “For that reason, we had established an intake process in the field, so that any information coming in about Ukraine could be carefully scrutinized by the department and its intelligence community partners, so that we could assess its provenance and its credibility.”
He added, “And, you know, that is true for all information that comes to the department relating to the Ukraine, including anything Mr. Giuliani might provide.”
Giuliani claimed to have found damaging information in Ukraine related to Hunter Biden, who took a lucrative job on a Ukrainian gas company board while his father was in the Obama administration.
Nadler sent a list of questions to Barr about the decision to receive the information from Giuliani. He said he wants to know, among other things, if the ethics department has reviewed the plan and whether Barr plans to recuse himself.
