Barr’s resignation leaves Trump without vital ally
US Attorney General William Barr, one of President Donald Trump’s staunchest allies, is departing amid lingering tension over the President’s baseless claims of election fraud and the investigation into President-elect Joe Biden’s son.
Barr went to the White House yesterday, where Trump said the attorney general submitted his letter of resignation.
Trump has publicly expressed his anger about Barr’s statement to the Associated Press earlier this month that the Justice Department had found no widespread fraud that would change the outcome of the election. Trump has also been angry that the Justice Department did not publicly announce it was investigating Hunter Biden ahead of the election, despite department policy against such a pronouncement.
Barr said US attorneys and FBI agents have been working to follow up specific complaints and information they’ve received, but “to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election”.
Barr’s resignation leaves Trump without a critical ally as he winds down his final weeks in office, and it throws into question open Justice Department investigations, especially the probe into Hunter Biden’s taxes.
In his resignation letter, Barr said he updated Trump yesterday on the department’s “review of voter fraud allegations in the 2020 election and how these allegations will continue to be pursued”.
Trump said Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen will become acting attorney general.
Despite Trump’s obvious disdain for those who publicly disagree with him, Barr had generally remained in the president’s good graces and has been one of the President’s most ardent allies. Before the election, he had repeatedly raised the notion that mailin voting could be especially vulnerable to fraud during the coronavirus pandemic as Americans feared going to polls.
Barr, who was serving in his second stint as attorney general, sought to paint himself as an independent leader who would not bow to political pressure.
However, in practice Barr acted more like the President’s personal attorney than the attorney general, and proved to be a largely reliable Trump ally and defender of presidential power.