After Flynn reversal, Trump signals his FBI director is on thin ice
Washington — President Donald Trump cast fresh doubt Friday on the future of his FBI director as federal law enforcement officials privately wrestled with fallout from the Justice Department’s move to throw out the guilty plea of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
The president’s comments in a phone interview with Fox News highlight the ongoing distrust between the White House and some law enforcement officials in the wake of a nearly two-year investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller III into Russia’s 2016 election interference and the Trump campaign.
“It’s disappointing,” Trump said when asked about Christopher Wray’s role in ongoing reviews of the FBI’s handling of the Russia investigation. “Let’s see what happens with him. Look, the jury’s still out.”
Trump faulted the FBI director for “skirting” the debate surrounding the Russia investigation, although the agency and the Justice Department have insisted it has cooperated fully with those reviewing the case. He said more developments could come in the next two weeks but declined to elaborate.
While the president continued to criticize the FBI’s conduct, multiple federal law enforcement officials interviewed Friday expressed varying degrees of anger, resignation and alarm over the decision by Attorney General William Barr to abandon the prosecution of Flynn for lying to the FBI about his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. before Trump took office.
“The attorney general is supposed to be above reproach and apolitical in terms of how the department operates and how he or she as an individual operates, and he’s just completely lost that,” said one veteran Justice Department lawyer who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. “He’s Trump’s attorney. He’s not the country’s attorney.”
A day after the Flynn reversal, more than a half dozen Justice Department employees expressed similar displeasure with the move, saying they did not agree with Barr’s legal rationale and that they worried about what it might portend for the agency going forward. A smaller number of law enforcement officials contacted Friday said they were basically pleased with the outcome, and were critical of decisions made by former FBI director James Comey, who launched the Flynn investigation.
Several current lawyers in the department said they were disturbed by Barr’s personal intervention in cases involving Trump’s friends, and a few said they or their colleagues were updating their resumes and considering leaving.
Some described being torn between wanting to leave because they feel the institution’s reputation is being ruined, and wanting to stay to stem the spread of what they see as political corruption. Most cases, the employees noted, do not attract the attorney general’s attention, though they still require competent management.
“It’s exhausting,” said one department lawyer. “You feel like it’s a constant battle of you against the leadership of your country, and that’s a horrible feeling.”
A spokeswoman for Barr said any talk of people contemplating leaving in the wake of the Flynn decision “is not what we are hearing. In fact, we have received significant positive feedback from Department lawyers who are applauding the recommendation of U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen.”