Republicans plan to mount an all-out defense of Attorney General William Barr against the “absurd” attacks leveled against him when he appears before the Democratic-led House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, calling him “the right man” for the job.
Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the ranking GOP member on the committee, released a 50-page Republican staff report titled “Examining Democrat Allegations Against Attorney General William Barr” shortly before the top DOJ official was scheduled to appear on Capitol Hill. The report, obtained by the Washington Examiner, provides a lengthy defense of Barr’s actions since taking over the job in early 2019, making the case that Barr has responded properly to the coronavirus pandemic and to the violence in a number of cities nationwide. The tome also hammers President Barack Obama’s Justice Department and argues that Democrats are upset that Barr is exposing misdeeds committed during the Trump-Russia investigation.
“Attorney General William P. Barr is a serious and experienced leader with a sterling reputation who came into office at the right time to clean up the mess left behind by the highly politicized Obama-Biden Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the Republican report says, adding, “Democrats, led by Chairman Jerrold Nadler, have been obsessed with attacking Attorney General Barr precisely because he is exposing the Obama-Biden abuses.”
Barr appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham to conduct an inquiry into the origins of the Russia investigation. Barr said he expects developments in that investigation, which Democrats have criticized as a political smear job, by the end of the summer.
Last month, Nadler claimed that Barr was putting Trump’s personal interests above that of the country.
“Mr. Barr’s actions make clear that in his Department of Justice, the president’s allies get special treatment, and the president’s enemies — real and imagined — are targeted for extra scrutiny. He is the president’s fixer. He has shown us that there is one set of rules for the president’s friends, and another set of rules for the rest of us,” the New York Democrat said.
The Republican report retorts: “Democrats have alleged that it is Attorney General Barr who has ‘politicized’ the Justice Department, saying that he is doing the personal bidding of President Trump. This allegation is absurd, especially in comparison to the actions of the Obama-Biden Justice Department.”
Jordan noted that Eric Holder, an attorney general under Obama, openly referred to himself as Obama’s “wingman.”
“Most notoriously, the Obama-Biden Justice Department weaponized its law-enforcement apparatus against the campaign of Donald Trump,” the Republican report says. “Attorney General Barr has led the effort to expose how the Obama-Biden DOJ and FBI targeted the Trump campaign.”
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s lengthy December report criticized the DOJ and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against Trump campaign associate Carter Page and for the bureau’s reliance on British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s Democrat-funded unverified dossier.
Declassified footnotes show the FBI was aware that Steele’s dossier might have been compromised by Russian disinformation, and a newly-public FBI interview revealed Steele’s primary subsource cast doubt on the dossier’s allegations.
Jordan notes the host of FBI records recently unearthed in the case against retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, which have been deemed exculpatory by Republicans and Flynn’s team and which the DOJ pointed to when moving to dismiss its charges against Flynn. Newly-declassified FBI documents show the counterintelligence briefing the bureau gave Trump during the 2016 campaign was used as a pretext to gather investigative evidence against the Trump campaign and Flynn.
“Democrats oppose the Attorney General’s work to expose the Obama-Biden abuses,” the Republican report says. “As Attorney General Barr works to restore integrity to the Justice Department, Democrats continue to play political games.”
Robert Mueller’s special counsel report, released in April 2019, said that Russians interfered in the 2016 election in a “sweeping and systematic fashion” but “did not establish” that members of the Trump campaign conspired with the Kremlin.
“Although Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s exhaustive investigation debunked allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, Democrats allege — without evidence — that Attorney General Barr somehow covered up misconduct,” the Republican report argues. “Democrats seem reluctant to accept the truth: that the Trump campaign did not collude with Russia.”
The Justice Department has repeatedly defended its handling of Mueller’s report, as a federal judge continues to scrutinize whether more of the report should be released and as the Supreme Court takes up a case to decide whether grand jury materials should be handed over to House Democrats.
Jordan also defended Barr’s handling of the Roger Stone case.
In February, after the Justice Department recommended a prison sentence of up to nine years for longtime Trump confidant, Trump tweeted that he “cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!” The Justice Department reversed itself, and the four line prosecutors withdrew. The agency walked back the “unduly high” sentence recommendation, suggesting three to four years instead. Barr called it “a righteous prosecution,” although Trump commuted Stone’s sentence earlier in July.
“Democrats conveniently ignore that Federal District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson — a President Obama appointee — found the initial recommendation made by former Special Counsel prosecutors to be excessive and that she agreed with the revised recommendation,” the Republican report notes.
Jordan additionally defends Barr’s firing of Geoffrey Berman, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, whom Democrats allege was removed for some yet-unknown nefarious reason.
“Democrats have now resorted to politicizing the appointment and removal of U.S. Attorneys —something squarely within the discretion of the President as chief executive and influence of the Attorney General as head of the Justice Department,” the Republican report argues.
“Now Democrats have sought to impeach him — a proposal so ridiculous that Speaker Pelosi quickly shot it down,” the Republican report says. “In these important times in our nation’s history, Democrats appear more inclined to manufacture controversy than recognize how Attorney General Barr is the right person to restore integrity to the Department of Justice.”
