WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump asserted Friday that he had the legal right to intervene in federal criminal cases, a day after Attorney General William Barr publicly rebuked him for attacks on Justice Department prosecutors and others involved in the case of Roger Stone.
In a morning tweet, Trump quoted Barr saying that the president "has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case." The president said he had "so far chosen" not to interfere in a criminal case even though he insisted that he was not legally bound to do so.
"This doesn't mean that I do not have, as President, the legal right to do so, I do, but I have so far chosen not to!" he said.
As president, Trump technically has the right to compel the Justice Department, an executive branch agency, to open investigations. But historically, when it comes to decisions on criminal investigations and prosecutions, the Justice Department has functioned independently, unmoved and unbound by political sway. And that reputation is important to Barr, as he made clear in his interview Thursday on ABC News.
"I'm happy to say that, in fact, the president has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case," Barr said. "However, to have public statements and tweets made about the department, about our people ... about cases pending in the department, and about judges before whom we have cases, make it impossible for me to do my job and to assure the courts and the prosecutors in the department that we're doing our work with integrity."
Both Trump and Barr have said the president has not directly asked for any specific inquiries.
Friday's assertion by the president, which rejected Barr's request to stop tweeting about the department's cases, adds to the controversy over the decision by senior Justice Department officials to overrule prosecutors who had recommended a seven- to nine-year sentence for Stone.
Stone was convicted of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing the House investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to tip the 2016 election.
Trump called the department's handling of the case "a disgrace" and later praised Barr after his top officials intervened to recommend a lighter sentence for Stone. The four prosecutors who were overruled resigned from the case; one quit the department entirely.
DEMOCRAT SKEPTICISM
Barr's comments took issue with Trump's tweets criticizing the federal judge overseeing the Stone case and the jury forewoman's impartiality after it was discovered she made anti-Trump tweets and was a Democrat activist. Barr insisted that, "I'm not going to be bullied or influenced by anybody."
Barr was directly asked in the ABC interview whether he believed Trump had the authority to direct him to open an investigation.
In many cases yes, such as "terrorism or fraud by a bank or something like that," Barr said.
However, "If he were to say, you know, go investigate somebody because -- and you sense it's because they're a political opponent, then an attorney general shouldn't carry that out, wouldn't carry that out."
Barr's comments didn't elicit backlash from Trump and his allies. Instead, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham issued a statement saying, "The President wasn't bothered by the comments at all." She added that Trump "has full faith and confidence in Attorney General Barr to do his job and uphold the law."
"The attorney general says it's getting in the way of doing his job," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told Fox News anchor Bret Baier. "Maybe the president should listen to the attorney general."
"Barr doesn't care where it takes him," House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said to Fox's Sean Hannity. "He just looks for justice."
Democrats and others remained skeptical of Barr's intent on Thursday.
"Barr isn't objecting to Trump's political interference with the Justice Department to undermine the rule of law," observed Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia. "He's saying Trump shouldn't tell everyone about it."
Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., pointed to Barr's reputation as "the president's defender."
"Basically, the attorney general was saying, 'Look I got this. I'm executing it. I'm doing all the things you want me to do. I'm your Roy Cohn,' " Cicilline told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, referring to Trump's late fixer and lawyer. " 'Don't make my job harder by tweeting about it and drawing attention to it.' "
John Dean, the former White House counsel to President Richard Nixon who became the chief witness against him before Congress, thought that "Barr staged it and I'd bet with a heads up to the White House." Meanwhile, Preet Bharara, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, tweeted that Barr is "shrewd, deliberate, smart, calculating, careful, and full of it."
"I have no doubt that when the president tweets, he is causing problems for the Attorney General," Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., who served as a manager in Trump's impeachment proceedings, said in a tweet late Thursday. "But he's not making it harder for Barr to do the right thing, he's making it harder for him to get away with doing the wrong thing." On CNN, Demings also speculated that Barr and Trump were "in cahoots."
'HUGE ALARM BELL'
Meanwhile, Democrats have demanded more information about Barr's intervention in the case of Stone.
"The resignation and defection of these prosecutors is a huge alarm bell going off in our system," said Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, one of the most vocal Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee who pushed for impeachment. "So, that is the immediate emergency."
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler announced Wednesday that Barr will testify before the committee March 31 and that lawmakers will ask him about his involvement in the Stone case. People familiar with the committee's plans said there could be other Judiciary Committee hearings before then that examine the politicization of the department. The people requested anonymity because the plans aren't yet set.
The GOP-led Senate has shown less interest in grilling the attorney general. Republicans defended the department's decision to reduce Stone's sentence and said they didn't expect to request Barr's testimony.
"President Trump, in selecting Bill Barr to be attorney general, has done a great service to the people serving in the Department of Justice and our nation as a whole," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a statement Thursday.
Graham added that Barr has his "complete confidence."
Information for this article was contributed by Michael D. Shear of The New York Times; by Michael Balsamo, Colleen Long, Mary Clare Jalonick, Lisa Mascaro, Jonathan Lemire, Deb Riechmann, Eric Tucker and Zeke Miller of The Associated Press; and by Fred Barbash and Allyson Chiu of The Washington Post.
A Section on 02/15/2020