Giuliani was a central figure to impeachment proceedings against Trump, which ended in the president's acquittal earlier this month.

Barr’s brazen intervention in the case of the president’s crony Roger Stone is the latest grave disappointment to those who thought he might rein in his boss’s excessesLawyers who have filled political appointee positions in the Trump administration have been pursued by doubts about their qualifications or caliber.In 2018, a justice department staffer was made acting attorney general, the department’s top job.Last week, the president installed a young friend of his aide Stephen Miller atop a pyramid of 2,500 lawyers as general counsel in the Department of Homeland Security.But there is one Trump appointee whose preparedness has never been questioned. William Barr, 69 and a veteran of 40 years in Washington, was confirmed one year ago as attorney general, a position with broad influence over the administration of justice and broad sway over public faith placed in it.“Barr is particularly effective,” said Paul Rosenzweig, a senior fellow at the R Street Institute and veteran of the George W Bush administration, “because he’s one of the very few exceptions among Trump appointees – someone who is both qualified to do the job and has sufficient experience to know how to do it well.“Sadly, he has decided to be an enabler.”At the end of a historically turbulent week for the justice department with unknown implications for the country, that combination in Barr – power plus a knack for wielding it – has provoked intense alarm in Washington and far beyond.The fear is that Barr’s competence has flipped from virtue to vice owing to a quality that he appears to lack or have lost: judgment in the face of an untethered president.> Trump’s actions reflect his belief that he really has, as he said, an absolute right to intervene anywhere> > Paul RosenzweigBarr was once seen as a potential check on Trump’s overt desire to take command of the justice department, deploying its investigators and prosecutors at his whim and his will. But this week, critics warn, the attorney general has been revealed as an eager accomplice in eroding norms meant to insulate the criminal justice system from political interference, threatening the bedrock principle of equality before the law.“We fought a revolution against kingly prerogative,” said Rosenzweig. “At its most extreme, Trump’s actions post-impeachment in the last week reflect his belief that he really has, as he said, an absolute right to intervene anywhere in the executive branch. And there’s a word for that.“People with absolute rights are kings.”Trump has never been coy about his intentions. On Friday morning, he fed the sense of alarm when he insisted that he has “the legal right” to intervene in criminal cases.But the developments of the past week have changed the public understanding of just how aligned Barr is with the president, and just how extensive his cooperation has been.Those developments included Barr’s intervention in a case involving Trump’s friend Roger Stone, prompting the withdrawal of four career prosecutors; the resignation from government of a prominent former US attorney previously sidelined by Barr; and the issuance of a rare public warning by a federal judge about the independence of the courts.“Bill Barr has turned the job of attorney general and the political appointee layer at the top of the justice department on its head,” said Neil Kinkopf, a Georgia State law professor who worked in the Office of Legal Counsel under Bill Clinton.“In past administrations of both political parties, the function of the political appointees at the justice department has been to insulate the rest of the department from political pressure. And Bill Barr instead has become the conduit for that political pressure.” ‘Shrewd, careful and full of it’Barr has not been untouched by the turbulence of the last week. Reported threats of additional resignations drove him on Thursday to grant a TV interview in which he complained that Trump’s tweets “make it impossible for me to do my job” and vowed: “I’m not going to be bullied or influenced by anybody.”A Trump spokesperson said the president’s feelings were not hurt. Barr was said to have warned the White House of what he was going to say.The interview was met with outrage and eye-rolls among critics who saw a wide divergence between what Barr said and everything else he has been doing.“I think Bill Barr is shrewd, deliberate, smart, calculating, careful, and full of it,” tweeted the former US attorney Preet Bharara.The real Barr, critics say, has a 12-month track record as a spearhead for Trump’s attack on justice, beginning with public lies about the report of special counsel Robert Mueller and running through his intervention in the case of Roger Stone.In a prominent early incident among many in which Barr’s loyalty to the president seemed to critics to exceed his loyalty to the nation, Barr called a press conference last April and offered a misleading preview of Mueller’s report. He omitted the report’s detailed description of potential obstruction of justice by Trump and falsely claimed the White House had cooperated fully.In May, Barr assigned a US attorney to investigate the origins of the Russia investigation, an obsession of Trump’s. In July, Barr traveled to London to ask intelligence officials there for help with the investigation. He made a similar trip to Italy in September.Recently, Barr announced the creation of an “intake process” for information gathered by Rudy Giuliani about investigations tied to Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. On Friday, the New York Times reported that Barr had assigned outside prosecutors to review the prosecution of the former national security adviser Michael Flynn and other defendants tied personally to Trump.In August, Barr declined to recuse himself from a justice department review of a whistleblower complaint charging Trump with soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 election, despite his being named in the report. The review found no wrongdoing by the president, who survived impeachment over the matter.> This kind of direct, presidential interference in specific ongoing criminal prosecutions is extraordinary> > Neil KinkopfBut no previous action by Barr provoked such a crisis as his intervention this week in the Stone case.In that episode, Barr directed the US attorney’s office in the District of Columbia, which handles many prominent cases with a nexus to the federal government, to revisit its recommendation of seven to nine years in prison for Stone, who was convicted of obstruction of justice and witness tampering among other felonies.It was unclear whether Barr issued his direction before or after a Trump tweet blasting the case as “a horrible and very unfair situation” and a “miscarriage of justice”. In any event, the US attorney, a hand-picked Barr ally, entered a new recommendation for a lighter sentence and the four career prosecutors who signed the original recommendation withdrew from the case in apparent protest.“I do think it is something of a break-the-glass moment because of how overt it is,” said Harry Sandick, a former assistant US attorney in the southern district of New York who helped draft a letter published by the New York City bar association on Wednesday calling for an “immediate investigation”.Kinkopf said: “This is a really significant break. This kind of direct, presidential interference in specific ongoing criminal prosecutions is extraordinary. Even for this president and this attorney general.”Barr’s intervention in the Stone case came after he orchestrated a replacement of the head of the prosecutor’s office in Washington, Jessie Liu, under murky circumstances. Liu had been tapped for a Treasury post and was replaced in the US attorney’s office by Timothy Shea, a Barr loyalist. Then, this week, Trump withdrew Liu’s nomination – and she resigned from government.“One wonders whether other tweets could lead to people being charged, to people seeking harsher sentences,” said Sandick. “We watch with concern over the possibility that the US attorney in Washington DC was replaced because of her unwillingness perhaps to charge [former FBI official] Andrew McCabe, or James Comey, or others.”A further Trump attack this week on the judge in the Paul Manafort and Stone cases, as well as the DC prosecutors, prompted a rare rebuke on Thursday from the chief US judge in the District of Columbia, Beryl A Howell.“The judges of this court base their sentencing decisions on careful consideration of the actual record in the case before them; the applicable sentencing guidelines and statutory factors; the submissions of the parties, the Probation Office and victims; and their own judgment and experience,” Howell said.“Public criticism or pressure is not a factor.” ‘Immense suffering, wreckage and misery’Barr grew up in New York City, graduated from George Washington University law school, served in the Reagan administration and was attorney general under George HW Bush, establishing a record as a hardliner on gang violence and immigration and advocating for pardons in the Iran-Contra affair.He is a devout Catholic, describing in a speech in October at the University of Notre Dame how the American experiment depends on the advance of “Judeo-Christian moral standards” and attacking “militant secularists” whose “campaign to destroy the traditional moral order has brought with it immense suffering, wreckage and misery”.Barr’s long career in public life led some justice department veterans to welcome his nomination as attorney general in late 2018, given concerns about who else Trump might pick.> There was some hope that he would be an attorney general in the traditional model … he has been a grave disappointment> > Paul Rosenzweig“Initially there was some hope that he would be an attorney general in the traditional model,” said Rosenzweig. “And I confess that myself, I thought that would be the case and I thought it would be a pretty traditional appointment.“And he has been a grave disappointment.”But there were also warnings about Barr, particularly attached to a memo he submitted to the department arguing that Mueller’s investigation of Trump for alleged obstruction of justice was “fatally misconceived”.Kinkopf was among those who warned that Barr’s view of executive power was dangerously expansive, telling the Guardian it “comes very close to putting the president above the law”.But there was room to believe at the time that Barr’s theories would remain theories, Kinkopf says now.“Even among people who have advocated that theory of presidential power,” he said, “there are very longstanding norms in the justice department and the White House about respecting the independence of the justice department.”Barr has not vindicated his supporters, Kinkopf said.“His theory is that the constitution allows for this, but good-faith service in the office of president and the office of attorney general maintains the credibility and the apolitical nature of law enforcement. That had long been the norm regardless of one’s view of presidential power.“Barr has completely obliterated that.”

Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said Friday there is no investigation into the Army officer who until last week worked at the White House National Security Council and was a key witness in the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump. McCarthy said Lt. Col. Alex Vindman has been moved to a short-term assignment at Army headquarters until he starts a regularly scheduled stint at a military college later this year.

Vindman, an impeachment witness fired from the White House by Trump, will have interim assignment before enrolling at a senior service war college.

(Bloomberg) -- Attorney General William Barr has ordered a review of the prosecution against Donald Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, adding to a series of interventions this week in politically sensitive cases tied to the president.Barr has appointed U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Jensen to examine the case against Flynn and potentially other matters, according to a person familiar with the decision.Flynn, who stepped down after less than a month as national security adviser, pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador. He’s since accused prosecutors of “egregious misconduct” and sought to have the charges dismissed.Barr’s move on the Flynn case, reported earlier Friday by the New York Times, comes after the attorney general intervened this week to reduce his department’s recommended n jail time for Roger Stone, a Trump associate who the president said has been treated unfairly, and announced a special legal channel for Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani to report his findings on Ukraine.Barr and Trump have rejected accusations that they are politicizing the Justice Department. But Barr issued a remarkable public rebuke of Trump on Thursday, saying in an ABC News interview that the president’s constant tweets on matters before the Justice Department made it “impossible” for him to do his job. While Barr said he was pleased “the president has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case,” Trump responded on Twitter Friday: “This doesn’t mean that I do not have, as President, the legal right to do so, I do, but I have so far chosen not to!” In a move sure to displease the president, the Justice Department on Friday closed its criminal investigation of Andrew McCabe, the former FBI deputy director who was dismissed after an internal review of his role in disclosing a Clinton Foundation probe to the media. Trump has frequently tweeted denunciations of McCabe, who he’s described as a “disgraced” official who was “fired for lying.”The Justice Department’s week of controversies began Monday, when Barr announced the special channel for Giuliani to funnel information he’s obtained in Ukraine. Giuliani has said he’s collecting information about the activities of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter in the eastern European nation. Pressure on Ukraine to announce a probe of Biden and the Democrats became a key issue in Trump’s impeachment by the Democratic-led House and his acquittal by the Republican-controlled Senate.Criticism surged on Tuesday, when the Justice Department reversed course on the recommendation about Stone’s sentencing after he was convicted of witness tampering and lying to Congress. Four career prosecutors quit the case after Barr cut the recommended penalty to a maximum of four years from nine years. Nine Democratic senators, including presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, called on Friday for Barr to resign over the intervention in Stone’s case.“The shocking actions taken by you or your senior staff to seek special protections for Mr. Stone make a mockery of your responsibilities to seek equal justice under the law and reveal that you are unfit to head the DOJ,” the letter says. It was also signed by Senators Chris Van Hollen, Patty Murray, Ron Wyden, Mazie Hirono, Ed Markey, Richard Blumenthal and Jeff Merkley.‘Stop the Tweeting’In the ABC News interview on Thursday, Barr criticized the president’s running commentary on pending cases, saying, “It’s time to stop the tweeting about Department of Justice criminal cases.”“As I said at my confirmation hearing, I think the essential role of the attorney general is to keep law enforcement, the criminal process sacrosanct to make sure there is no political interference in it,” Barr said. “And I have done that and I will continue to do that.”The president’s Friday morning tweet asserting his right to intervene in pending cases raised questions about whether he took Barr’s remarks with the equanimity suggested earlier by his spokeswoman.White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement on Thursday that Trump “wasn’t bothered by the comments at all, and he has the right, just like any American citizen, to publicly offer his opinions.”\--With assistance from Laura Litvan and Elizabeth Wasserman.To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Strohm in Washington at cstrohm1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, Larry LiebertFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Donald Trump, with both words and deeds, is presenting a new theory for presidential power since being impeached by House Democrats but acquitted by Senate Republicans.In one of his most brazen threats yet, the president on Friday morning told the world he is poised to burn down a norm that has long allowed the Justice Department to operate mostly without political influence.

President Trump has admitted sending Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine to dig up dirt on a political rival, openly contradicting his own denials on the subject during the impeachment inquiry, just days after being acquitted of all alleged crimes.

Donald Trump’s removal of impeachment witness Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman from the White House and intervention in his friend Roger Stone’s sentencing have prompted concern that the president’s acquittal in his recent impeachment trial may embolden him to further expand executive power while avoiding accountability.But the conclusion of the trial in the Senate should by no means end congressional oversight of the executive branch. As a legal scholar and political scientist, I know that a healthy, stable democracy depends on people knowing what their government is doing so they can hold elected officials accountable through elections. Our constitutional system ensures transparency and accountability by authorizing legislative branch oversight of the executive.This is more important now in the aftermath of the first ever presidential impeachment trial to take place without witness testimony or a full investigation of the facts. Oversight is one way to ensure government transparency. The Constitution authorizes Congress to exercise oversight as part of the carefully crafted balance of powers among the three branches of government.Impeachment is an important check on presidential power. However, it is the most rarely used of the multiple tools Congress has to review, monitor and supervise the executive branch and its implementation of public policy.Congress can also exercise oversight through the power of the purse, which allows it to withhold or limit funding. And it can use its power to organize the executive branch, which it uses to create and abolish federal agencies.In addition, Congress makes laws, confirms officials and conducts investigations. Shining a lightThe tool Congress is most likely to use – investigations – is also the most likely to be affected by the impeachment trial. Investigations can be an effective mechanism for ensuring governmental transparency because they publicize what government agencies have, or have not, been doing. Both the House and the Senate have broad investigative powers implied in the Constitution that have been used to probe the executive branch and private sector over the years. Each chamber has wide powers in setting out the parameters and expected outcomes of an inquiry. Either the House or the Senate can direct staff to obtain documents and interview potential witnesses. These efforts usually culminate in committee hearings and a report made available to the public. Congressional investigations have effectively shined light on questionable executive branch conduct in the past. They exposed the Reagan administration’s diversion of funds from sales of arms to Iran to aid the Nicaraguan Contras, George W. Bush administration’s misrepresentation of intelligence to justify the Iraq War, and President Nixon’s attempts to cover up the Watergate scandal.They have also revealed waste and abuse by federal agencies, including corruption related to the FBI’s use of confidential informants and mismanagement by leadership in the Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Program.In addition to fostering transparency and governmental accountability, investigations alert Congress to gaps in the law. For example, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations’ inquiry into the 2008 financial crisis led to greater consumer protection and regulation of the banking sector in the Dodd-Frank Act. Existing oversight investigations into Trump’s policies and him personally will continue. The House Subcommittee on Oversight and Reform has at least two pending investigations. One is looking into the Department of Education’s policies on federal student loans, campus sexual harassment and protections for students at for-profit colleges. Another is investigating the Trump administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the census. Meanwhile, investigations into Trump’s borrowing and banking practices prior to becoming president will continue. So will efforts to compel the Treasury Department to release Trump’s tax returns. Impeachment’s shadow?But as the impeachment trial shows, the president can stonewall efforts to hand over information. Currently, federal courts are hearing multiple court cases in which House committees have sought information from or about the president.More disputes between Congress and the executive branch are likely. Recently, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform threatened to subpoena Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos after she refused to attend a public hearing. And Attorney General William Barr agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee about the Department of Justice’s reversal of its sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone. Trump’s acquittal may embolden him to persist in his arguments for absolute immunity and reassert them if, for example, DeVos is subpoenaed or Barr testifies. But ultimately, the courts may have more impact on future oversight than the impeachment trial as they have the power to order disclosure of information. Left in the darkCongress is not limited to investigations when it comes to holding the president accountable. Congress persists in its attempts to use its war powers to restrict Trump’s actions in Iran. The House recently passed a measure requiring congressional pre-approval before any money was spent on attacking Iran and voted to repeal the 17-year-old authorization for the Iraq War, which the Trump Administration used to justify the assassination of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani. And the Senate passed a resolution to limit President Trump’s ability to use force against Iran.Congress has several other mechanisms for exercising oversight. It can defund, redirect, or even eliminate federal agencies and refuse to confirm presidential appointments. But it remains to be seen whether it will continue to pursue vigorous oversight. The impending election could distract or deter Democrats, who want to refocus their line of attack on Trump by disputing his record on the economy. Meanwhile Republicans, who fear electoral repercussions if they alienate the president’s base, are unlikely to seek more oversight.Without oversight, people are left in the dark about what their government is doing. And a misled or uninformed public weakens the only other mechanism available to hold the executive branch accountable: elections.[You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors. You can get our highlights each weekend.]This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * After the trial of Donald Trump, impeachment has lost some of its gravitas * This is how ancient Rome’s republic died – a classicist sees troubling parallels at Trump’s impeachment trialKirsten Carlson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

President Donald Trump previously denied directing his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani's efforts to dig up dirt against Joe Biden in Ukraine.

President Trump told Fox News friend Geraldo Rivera on Thursday that he did send Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine to procure damaging information on his political rivals. "Was it strange to send Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine, your personal lawyer?" Rivera asked Trump on his podcast. "Are you sorry you did that?" "No, not at all," Trump responded. "When you tell me, why did I use Rudy, and one of the things about Rudy, No. 1, he was the best prosecutor, you know, one of the best prosecutors, and the best mayor.""That is literally the exact opposite of what he told Bill O'Reilly in an interview in November," CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale told Don Lemon on Thursday night, playing the clip where Trump said, "No, I didn't direct him," meaning Giuliani. "So what has changed now? Well, perhaps Trump just thinks impeachment's over with, I've been acquitted, I can say whatever I want. Perhaps he forgot that he ever denied this. Regardless, though, what he's saying now is the truth. He did direct Rudy to go there. We heard that not only from Rudy himself, but from testimony from others in the impeachment inquiry."CNN senior political analyst John Avlon, sitting on Lemon's panel, found Dale's second explanation more plausible. "The fact is, the president probably forgot that he lied," Avlon said. "This is what happens when you sort of live in a web of lies — occasionally you contradict yourself."Trump's admission he sent Giuliani means he's either "either emboldened after his acquittal in the Senate impeachment trial or comfortable on the show of a longtime friend," suggests New York's Matt Stieb. But he wasn't fooling anyone to begin with. On his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Stieb notes, Trump told Zelensky that "Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great."More stories from theweek.com Trump's latest possible quid pro quo involves New York, airport travel, and his tax returns The sidelining of Elizabeth Warren Authoritarians aren't like Mao anymore. They're like Trump.