Former Federal Prosecutor Urges Justice Department Officials To Revolt Against William Barr
In an interview with MSNBC broadcast on Saturday, former federal prosecutor Cynthia Alksne urged Justice Department officials to revolt against Attorney General William Barr, reports Raw Story.
According to Alksne, the inspector general found that Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference was not politically-motivated, as President Donald Trump has claimed, but Barr is “directly taking all the work of all the people and he’s throwing it in the trash.”
The attorney general has “broken all the rules” and he is now “putting his thumb on the scale” of U.S. Attorney John Durham’s followup investigation.
“Barr has been totally improper with Durham,” she said, arguing that Durham has been “forced” to make a statement. Because of Barr’s behavior and meddling with the investigations, according to Alksne, Justice Department officials must revolt.
Drawing a parallel between the situation in the Justice Department and similar circumstances in the State Department, Alksne called on officials to stand up to the attorney general.
“Durham has got to stand up to him, and that’s got to be true of everybody in the Justice Department when Barr oversteps his bounds,” according to the former federal prosecutor.
The attorney general is a “bad guy,” Alksne said.
“And he’s actually a metaphor for the entire Republican Party at this point,” she added.
Although the inspector general report did not reveal partisan bias in Mueller’s team, it revealed damning information about the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). As The Intercept noted, the report found that the FBI manipulated documents and concealed exonerating evidence in order to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign official Carter Page.
“Perhaps these revelations will finally lead to a realization about how rogue, and dangerous, these police state agencies have become,” the publication concluded.
Appointed earlier this year, Barr has been accused of protecting Trump and covering up his alleged crimes. According to some legal experts, however, the attorney general might not be able to protect administration officials from prosecution.
In a recent interview, former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance explained that administration officials can be prosecuted as soon as Barr is replaced. If Trump loses in 2020, a Democratic president could hypothetically decide to go after Trump administration officials allegedly guilty of crimes.
According to Democrats in the House of Representatives, Trump is not only guilty of colluding with the Russian government, he is also guilty of inviting foreign meddling in the 2020 presidential election. According to Democrats, Trump froze military aid to Ukraine in order to force the country to investigate one of his main political rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden.
Biden is one of the Democratic frontrunners in the 2020 presidential race, and Trump wanted to damage Biden’s campaign by having Ukraine investigate him, Democrats claim.
