Barr mulls quitting
U.S. attorney general said to be frustrated with Trump’s tweets.
WASHINGTON — Attorney General William Barr has told people close to him he’s considering quitting his post after President Donald Trump wouldn’t heed his warning to stop tweeting about Justice Department cases, an administration official told the Associated Press.
Barr’s spokeswoman said late Tuesday that the attorney general “has no plans to resign.”
The revelation came days after Barr took a public swipe at the president, saying in a television interview that Trump’s tweets about Justice Department cases and staffers make it “impossible” for him to do his job. The next day, Trump insisted that he has the “legal right” to intervene in criminal cases and sidestep the Justice Department’s historical independence.
Trump tweeted Tuesday that he’s considering suing those involved in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and said his confidant Roger Stone deserved a new trial after being convicted of witness tampering and obstruction.
Trump called himself the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.
“I chose not to be involved,” he said just before boarding Air Force One to depart for the West Coast. “I’m allowed to be totally involved.”
He told journalists that he understood that his remarks were making Barr’s job harder but that social media had helped catapult him to the White House and given him a worldwide megaphone. “Everybody has the right to speak their mind,” he said. “Social media for me has been very important because it gives me a voice. Because I don’t get that voice in the press.”
The president said he believed that Stone, a former campaign adviser, had “been treated very unfairly.”Stone, 67, was convicted in November of seven felonies for obstructing a congressional inquiry.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson of U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia ruled Tuesday morning that Stone’s sentencing will go on as planned Thursday despite lastditch motions by his defense lawyers for a new trial.
The prosecutors who handled Stone’s jury trial recommended that he be sentenced to between seven and nine years in prison. But Barr said that punishment would be unduly harsh.
After Barr scrapped the sentencing recommendation in favor of a much lighter one, four government lawyers withdrew from the case, and one resigned from the department entirely.
Barr’s decision coincided with Trump’s criticism of the sentencing request as a “miscarriage of justice,” though Barr said he was not influenced by the president’s views.
Barr defended his decision last week, saying he based it strictly on the merits of the case. But he also said that Trump’s public comments were making his job impossible and undermining his credibility and that the president had to stop.
Trump suggested that he was obligated to weigh in. “You take a look at what’s happening to these people,” he told reporters. “Someone has to stick up for the people.”
Barr, serving in his second stint as attorney general, sought to paint himself as an independent leader who would not bow to political pressure. But Democrats have repeatedly accused Barr of acting more like the president’s personal attorney.
In recent days, a stream of Trump allies, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, have issued statements expressing their full confidence in the attorney general.