Attorney General William Barr’s denial that he ordered law enforcement to disperse a crowd for President Trump’s church photo-op last week is laughable, according to one of special counsel Robert Mueller’s top prosecutors.
Andrew Weissmann, a former Justice Department official who was known as Mueller’s “pit bull” during the Russia investigation, said it was “absurd” how Barr distanced himself from the use of smoke, pepper balls, and police on horses last week to push back a largely peaceful gathering of hundreds of protesters from Lafayette Park, which sits in front of the White House, before Trump walked to nearby St. John’s Episcopal Church where he held up a Bible and posed for photographers along with the attorney general and other members of his administration.
Weissmann referred to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and protesters challenging the federal use of force.
“One thing that has already started is there is a federal lawsuit in Washington, D.C.,” Weissmann said Friday during an appearance on MSNBC alongside new legal analyst and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page.
Noting that the ACLU is alleging violations of the First Amendment and Fourth Amendment, as well as civil rights violations, Weissmann added that Barr himself could be deposed.
“I would very much like to see how the attorney general would answer the questions and have follow-ups in response to the clip that you just showed because, you know, that is what’s commonly known in the legal profession as ‘doesn’t pass the laugh test.’ I mean, that’s just absurd,” he said.
He was alluding to comments Barr made at the Justice Department on Thursday. Clips aired by MSNBC included Barr saying, “My interest was to carry out the law enforcement functions of the federal government and to protect federal facilities and federal personal.” In another clip, Barr said: “There was no correlation between our tactical plan of moving the perimeter out by one block and the president’s going over to the church.”
Barr insisted to CBS News over the weekend that the crowd in Lafayette Park was not peaceful, contradicting the accounts of journalists who were on the ground, whom he said were perpetuating a “big” lie. He also noted there were repeated warnings telling protesters to leave, ahead of a curfew Monday evening, before they were forced out. This was after another night of looting, vandalism, and attacks on law enforcement in the city during which the basement of St. John’s was briefly set on fire.
Weissmann played an instrumental role in winning convictions against former Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort and Rick Gates. He has repeatedly voiced criticism of Trump and Barr as an NBC News legal analyst. In April, it was announced he was rejoining Jenner & Block as its investigations co-chairman. He was briefly scheduled to hold a fundraiser for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, but it was canceled late last month as Trump and his allies said the event was evidence the Russia investigation was politically motivated.
Earlier in the show, Weissmann commented on how many of the assorted federal law enforcement officials deployed to Washington, D.C., to respond to unrest in the capital city declined to identify themselves beyond being agents of the Justice Department or the federal government.
Weissmann, a former FBI general counsel, was asked by anchor Nicole Wallace how unidentified federal officials roaming the streets could be legal.
“There’s limited legal authority at the federal level to be taking action, and one of the problems with the attorney general saying, ‘We’re not identifying these people’, is that … it turns on its head that these are public servants,” he said.
