Another Justice Department top dog finds himself in President Trump’s doghouse over the Russia investigation.
Attorney General William Barr is stuck between liberals who accuse him of being a Trump flunkie and MAGA enthusiasts who share the president’s view that there needs to be criminal charges against individuals responsible for the Trump-Russia investigation.
Barr loyalists insist that the attorney general, who previously held the same office in George H.W. Bush’s administration, has been consistent. When it comes to both obstruction of justice allegations against the president and investigating the origins of the Trump-Russia affair, he has held a high standard for corrupt intent and bringing charges against public servants for actions committed while performing their jobs.
U.S. Attorney John Durham has been investigating the origins of the Russia inquiry at Barr’s request. This investigation is now seen as unlikely to result in criminal charges against high-level officials, and Durham’s report is no longer expected before the presidential election.
Longtime conservative legal activist Larry Klayman has called Barr an “establishment disgrace” who is “taking a cowardly dive” with an investigation he calls a “DOJ sham.” Tom Fitton, president of the conservative-leaning group Judicial Watch, has publicly pressed Durham to speed up his investigative work and release a report. “I just don’t understand what he’s been doing,” Fitton said.
“In general, I think Bill Barr has done an excellent job as AG,” said conservative strategist Chris Barron. “However, as it regards the foundations of the Russia hoax, more should have been done to make sure the American voters have all the facts before November. And let’s be honest, if Trump loses, President Biden shelves this investigation on day one.”
But the most searing criticism has come from Trump himself. “I’m not happy with all of the evidence I have, I can tell you that. I’m not happy,” he told Newsmax TV. And he has put the blame squarely on the attorney general’s shoulders.
“Unless Bill Barr indicts these people for crimes, the greatest political crime in the history of our country, then we’ll get little satisfaction unless I win,” Trump told Fox Business. “Because I won’t forget it. But these people should be indicted. These are people who spied on my campaign. And we have everything. And I say, ‘Bill, we’ve got plenty, you don’t need anymore. We’ve got so much.’”
Trump has declined to commit to retaining Barr as attorney general if he wins a second term.
Barr has emerged as an ally of the president on executive power and a “law and order” approach to crime. Congressional Democrats savaged his summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which emphasized the investigation’s failure to show Trump’s campaign had conspired with the Russians to fix the 2016 election. Barr also made public his own finding that Trump did not obstruct justice after Mueller declined to take a definitive position on that question in his own report. Liberal groups have called for Barr’s impeachment and removal from office.
Under Barr, a Justice Department inspector general report revealed serious flaws in the Trump-Russia investigation, including the warrants used to surveil a Trump campaign aide, though it stopped short of establishing bias on the part of the investigators.
Barr’s predecessor Jeff Sessions had once been a close ally too. Sessions was the first senator to endorse Trump for president. The two shared an immigration agenda, and top Trump adviser Stephen Miller came from Sessions’s Senate staff. But their relationship was permanently ruptured by Sessions’s decision to recuse himself in the Russia investigation, which was followed by the appointment of a special counsel.
Trump later fired Sessions as attorney general. When Sessions tried to reclaim his Alabama Senate seat, Trump campaigned against him and helped his Republican primary opponent, Tommy Tuberville, win instead.
While Sessions was mum on the Trump-Russia investigation, Barr has been critical of the surveillance of the Trump campaign, calling it “spying,” and the failure to wrap up swiftly once no collusion could be proven. But Barr has also complained about Trump’s tweeting during the Roger Stone case, saying the president’s public commentary made it “impossible” for him to do his job properly.
Barr remains widely respected in conservative legal circles and has allies in and around the White House who argue his tenure has been overwhelmingly positive for the president.
“I think it’s ridiculous and a clear indication of how little Trump’s people understand how government works,” said a Republican operative in Washington, D.C. “The attorney general is not the president’s personal lawyer or his political hatchet man. He also can’t control how long an investigation takes or force it to a conclusion that isn’t there.”
