William
Barr must quit over Trump-Stone scandal – former justice officials
More than
1,000 public servants decry presidential interference
Aide Conway
claims justice system rigged against Trump
Robert
Reich: assaulting justice, Trump has out-Nixoned Nixon
Ed
Pilkington in New York
@edpilkington
Sun 16 Feb
2020 20.24 GMTFirst published on Sun 16 Feb 2020 16.21 GMT
More than
1,000 former US justice department officials, including some of the top
government lawyers in the country, have called on attorney general William Barr
to resign in the wake of the Roger Stone scandal.
Some 1,143
alumni of the Department of Justice posted to Medium on Sunday a group letter
that tore into Barr for “doing the president’s personal bidding” in imposing on
prosecutors the recommendation of a reduced sentence for Stone, a longtime
friend of Donald Trump who was convicted of lying to and obstructing Congress
and threatening a witness in the Russia investigation.
Barr, the
officials said, had damaged the reputation of the department for “integrity and
the rule of law”.
The searing
letter is the latest twist in a rapidly spiraling constitutional crisis that
began earlier this week when Barr imposed his new sentencing memo, slashing a
seven- to nine-year proposed prison term suggested by career prosecutors. In
the fallout, the four prosecutors who had handled the case resigned in disgust.
The letter
carries weight because its signatories are exclusively drawn from past DoJ
public servants. Among them are several former US attorneys appointed by both
Republican and Democratic presidents and section chiefs of key elements of the
justice department including its antiterrorism unit.
They write
that it is unheard of for top leaders of the justice department to overrule
line prosecutors in order to give preferential treatment to close associates of
the president. They say that amounts to political interference that is
“anathema to the department’s core mission and to its sacred obligation to
ensure equal justice under the law”.
Barr’s
action amounted to an existential threat to the republic, the former officials
say: “Governments that use the enormous power of law enforcement to punish
their enemies and reward their allies are not constitutional republics; they
are autocracies.”
Barr tried
to squash the perception he had been leaned on by Trump by calling on the
president to stop tweeting about criminal prosecutions. He told ABC News such
unrestrained comments were “making it impossible for me to do my job”.
But
speculation continued to swirl that Barr had kowtowed to the president.
Demoralisation spread rapidly through the DoJ, intensifying when it emerged
that Barr has ordered outside prosecutors to re-examine criminal cases against
Trump associates including former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
The president thinks Andy McCabe should have
been punished because he lied and lied several times to the investigators
Kellyanne
Conway
Despite
palpable distress among both serving and former officials, and multiple
warnings that Trump and Barr are threatening the very rule of law, the White
House has continued to inflame the situation. Trump counsellor Kellyanne Conway
on Sunday claimed the president was a victim of a “two-tier criminal justice
system” that was actively undermining him and his associates.
Conway used
Fox News Sunday to pour fuel on the fire. The truth, she claimed, was that far
from making a dangerous intervention in criminal cases involving his friends
and perceived enemies, Trump himself is the victim of the politicisation of the
justice system.
“If you’re President Trump or people
associated with him there’s prosecutions that have gone one way,” Conway said,
alluding to the original sentence recommended for Stone which she contrasted
with the decision announced by the justice department on Friday to drop charges
against former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe.
Directly
contradicting her own claim that Trump, despite his “vast powers”, was not
engaging in political interference in criminal cases, Conway proceeded to
interfere in a criminal case. She called McCabe a “serial liar and leaker” and
went on: “The president thinks that Andy McCabe should have been punished
because he lied and lied several times to the investigators.”
McCabe, a
deputy to fired FBI director James Comey and a key figure in the Russia
investigation, was fired by Trump in March 2018, two days shy of retirement.
The furore
over Trump ignoring protocols that have kept a distance between the White House
and federal prosecutors since Watergate began when the president slammed the
proposed sentence for Stone as “horrible and very unfair”. Hours later, Barr
announced that he was imposing a reduced recommended sentence.
Trump then
made the constitutionally dubious claim that as president he has the “legal
right” to stick his finger into any criminal case.
On Saturday
he duly re-entered the fray over McCabe, claiming falsely that DoJ inspector
general Michael Horowitz recommended the former FBI man’s firing. Horowitz
referred criticisms of McCabe to prosecutors but did not recommend dismissal.
On Sunday
Marc Short, chief of staff to vice-president Mike Pence, made further
contentious comments on CNN’s State of the Union. Like Conway, he claimed
without evidence that criminal justice was skewed against the president.
“The scales of justice aren’t balanced any
more,” he said, “when someone like Roger Stone gets a prosecution that suggests
a nine-year jail sentence and candidly someone like Andy McCabe who also lied
to federal investigators gets a lucrative contract here at CNN. People say,
‘How is this fair?’ and that’s the source of the president’s frustration.”
The row has
also become a major talking point among Democrats vying to take on Trump in
November. Former vice-president Joe Biden told NBC’s Meet the Press: “No one,
no one, including Richard Nixon, has weaponised the Department of Justice” as
much as Trump.
The crisis
is personal for Biden, given the efforts to coerce Ukraine into investigating
him and his son Hunter which led to Trump’s impeachment. Last week it was
revealed that Barr has set up a channel to review information gathered in
Ukraine by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani relating to the Bidens.
“To have a
thug like Rudy Giuliani reporting to the attorney general – I mean this is,
this is almost like a really bad sitcom,” Biden said.
“Any
self-respecting Republican or Democratic top-flight lawyer would have just
resigned by now, in my view. It’s just the things that are being done are so
beyond the pale.”
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