Witnesses claim prosecution decisions politicized

WASHINGTON -- The House Judiciary Committee heard testimony Wednesday from a federal prosecutor and another witness who have accused Attorney General William Barr and his top deputies of acting "based on political considerations" and a desire to appease President Donald Trump.

As the hearing began, Barr's spokeswoman, Kerri Kupec, said in a tweet that Barr has accepted an invitation from the panel's chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., to appear for a "general oversight hearing" on July 28. According to a Judiciary Committee spokesman, the Department of Justice contacted the panel on Tuesday regarding a date for Barr's testimony so as to avoid the attorney general being subpoenaed.

Aaron Zelinsky, an assistant U.S. attorney in Maryland formerly detailed to special prosecutor Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, told the panel that prosecutors involved in the criminal trial of Trump's friend Roger Stone experienced "heavy pressure from the highest levels of the Department of Justice" to give Stone "a break" by requesting a lighter sentence.

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Justice Department leadership changed the sentencing recommendation for Stone just hours after Trump tweeted his displeasure at the recommendation of up to nine years in prison. Stone was sentenced Feb. 20 to serve more than three years in prison plus two years' probation and a $20,000 fine.

Barr has said Trump's tweet played no role in the change. He said he ordered the new filing hours earlier because he was caught off guard by the initial sentencing recommendation and believed it was excessive based on the facts of the case.

Zelinsky testified about how he was pressured to offer a more lenient sentencing recommendation for Stone, and the reason was political.

"I was told that the acting U.S. attorney was giving Stone a break because he was afraid of the president of the United States," Zelinsky testified.

Zelinsky testified that he and his fellow career prosecutors resisted efforts to reduce their sentencing recommendation and were told "we could be fired if we didn't go along." He said he was not given a good legal reason for offering a lighter recommendation.

"What I heard repeatedly was that this leniency was happening because of Stone's relationship to the president, that the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia was receiving heavy pressure from the highest levels of the Department of Justice and that his instructions to us were based on political considerations," Zelinsky said.

Zelinsky said during questioning from the top Republican on the panel, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, that one of the supervisors he had talked to was J.P. Cooney, chief of the fraud and public corruption section at the U.S. attorney's office, and that his understanding was that his supervisors had been in meetings with the acting U.S. attorney at the time, Timothy Shea.

Jordan and other Republicans dismissed the testimony as hearsay.

"It sounds like you heard stuff you are now bringing to this committee as fact," Jordan said.

Zelinsky conceded he did not have firsthand knowledge of discussions among political leadership. He said he and his colleagues were initially allowed to file the recommendation they wanted, only to have the Justice Department later reverse course after Trump tweeted his anger over the matter.

"It pains me to describe these events, but Judge [Amy Berman] Jackson said in this case, the truth still matters. And so I am here today to tell you the truth," he said.

Zelinsky was joined by John Elias, an official in the Justice Department's antitrust division, who said that Barr ordered staff members to investigate marijuana company mergers simply because of his "personal dislike" of the nature of their underlying business.

Also appearing were former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former Deputy Attorney General Donald Ayer, who has publicly called on Barr to step down.

Mukasey, who was U.S. attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, defended Barr against accusations of political interference, describing Trump's attorney general as "an experienced lawyer and leader."

"The Justice Department is not politicized because senior officials disagreed with the sentencing recommendation for Mr. Stone," Mukasey said, reprising some of the arguments he made in a Wall Street Journal op-ed he co-wrote in February with former attorney general Edwin Meese defending Barr.

Mukasey said that "there seems to be a tendency these days to read ulterior motives into every action of Attorney General Barr," but that those concerns were unwarranted.

"I have no doubt that the welfare of this country, upheld through the evenhanded application of law so as to achieve justice, is what motivates him and motivates his decisions," Mukasey said of Barr.

The Democratic-led panel and Barr have been feuding since shortly after he took office in early 2019, when he declined to testify about Mueller's report. Nadler said at the opening of the hearing Zelinsky and Elias were "patriots."

The testimony showed "that there is one set of rules for the president's friends and another set of rules for the rest of us," Nadler said.

Information for this article was contributed by Matt Zapotosky of The Washington Post and by Mary Clare Jalonick, Michael Balsamo and Eric Tucker of The Associated Press.