Attorney General William Barr said he chooses to ignore President Trump’s diatribes on Twitter.
“I don’t pay any attention. I don’t even know what he tweets,” Barr told the New York Times.
In the interview, Barr was asked about Trump’s tweets calling for those behind the “persecution” of his former national security adviser Michael Flynn to “pay a big price.”
“I haven’t seen any of his tweets about Flynn, so I’m not sure what he’s saying,” said Barr, who was then shown a printout of Trump’s April 29 tweet.
“Take it for what you will,” Barr said. “The thing that I reacted to with [Roger] Stone, was him [Trump] saying what the department should do.”
Barr condemned some of Trump’s tweets in February after the president complained about prosecutors initially requesting a seven-to-nine-year prison sentence for Roger Stone, a longtime GOP operative and Trump confidant.
At the time, when the Justice Department suggested a more lenient sentence, Barr said the tweets were making “it impossible for me to do my job.”
“I think it’s time to stop the tweeting about Department of Justice criminal cases,” Barr said. “I’m not going to be bullied or influenced by anybody … whether it’s Congress, a newspaper editorial board, or the president,” he told ABC News.
