Former national security adviser scant on details about Ukraine, but says he worries ‘effort to write history’ will be censoredJohn Bolton celebrated Presidents’ Day by breaking his silence for the first time since Donald Trump’s impeachment trial – speaking of his frustrations and teasing the content of his forthcoming book.But when it came to his former boss, the president’s former national security adviser was scant on details, hinting that he is restricted in what he can say.Bolton, who left the White House in September following foreign policy disagreements, was interviewed on stage on Monday night at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.It was his first public speech since Trump’s impeachment trial where – despite repeated appeals by Democrats for him to testify, and Bolton’s stated willingness to do so if subpoenaed – he did not speak to Congress.But following the leak of a draft of his unpublished forthcoming memoir, which reportedly described how Trump told him he wanted to delay US military aid to Ukraine until its government agreed to investigate Democrats, including presidential hopeful Joe Biden, his shadow loomed large over proceedings – which ended in Trump’s acquittal.Duke did not allow audio recording or livestreaming at the main event. Interviewer Peter Feaver, a professor of political science and public policy at the university, is understood to have told the audience that the restrictions were due to Bolton’s contract.But journalists present at the event live tweeted Bolton’s comments as the pair spoke on stage.Asked about Trump’s tweets about him, Bolton is reported to have said he could not comment, pending a White House review of the manuscript for his forthcoming book. “He tweets, but I can’t talk about it. How fair is that?” he said, according to one reporter present.When asked on Monday what it was like to staff Trump’s 2018 meeting with Putin in Helsinki, Bolton reportedly said: “To pursue the right policies for America, I was willing to put up with a lot.”“I’m not asking for martyrdom,” he added. “I knew, I think I knew, what I was getting into.”According to CNN, Bolton and his lawyers have been battling with the White House about the book, scheduled to be published under the title The Room Where it Happened next month.The Trump administration is reportedly concerned about the inclusion of classified information protected by executive privilege. CNN reports that the White House records management is reviewing the book.During Monday’s talk, he appeared to repeatedly trail the memoir.On the subject of Helsinki, he also replied – reportedly to audience groans: “I could read a chapter from my book here and give you the answer to that question.”After a question about whether he agreed with Trump that his 25 July call was “perfect”, he said: “You will love chapter 14”.He also reportedly referred to “censorship” of the manuscript. “This is an effort to write history … We’ll see what happens with the censorship,” he said.Outside the venue, dozens of protesters gathered for a “The People v John Bolton Rally”. A Facebook page promoting the event described Bolton as “architect of the Iraq war, Islamophobe and war criminal” and criticised Duke for hosting him as an “esteemed speaker”.His Duke visit is the first of two university appearances this week. On Wednesday he is due to speak with Barack Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on the subject of “defining US global leadership”.

(Bloomberg) -- Former National Security Advisor John Bolton raised alarm the Trump administration could block his memoir that describes his interaction with the president over Ukraine.“I hope it’s not suppressed,” Bolton said Monday in a talk at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. “This is an effort to write history, and I did it the best I can. We’ll have to see what comes out of the censorship.”Bolton added later: “I say things in the manuscript about what he said to me,” referring to Trump. “I hope they become public someday. He tweets but I can’t talk about it. How fair is that?”Bolton said he couldn’t answer a question related to North Korea because it’s also included in his book, which is undergoing pre-publication review by the government. The Trump administration already has raised concern about the manuscript divulging secret information.The event was Bolton’s first public appearance since Trump’s impeachment trial was roiled over a New York Times report that Bolton would publish a memoir alleging that the president explicitly said he wanted to condition security assistance to Ukraine on an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.The report raised pressure on Senate Republicans to call witnesses in the trial and undermined the White House’s claim that Trump never sought a quid pro quo for U.S. military aid to Ukraine. But Trump denied the allegations -- tweeting that the news emerged only because Bolton sought “to sell a book” -- and Senate Republicans ultimately voted against calling Bolton or other witnesses before voting to acquit the president.Chapter 14At the event on Monday, Bolton was asked whether he agreed with Trump’s characterization of his call with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as “perfect.” Bolton responded: “You’ll love chapter 14.”But Bolton made clear his book covers more than Ukraine.“There are portions of the manuscript that deal with Ukraine,” he said. “I view that like the sprinkles on the ice cream sundae, meaning, in terms of what’s in the book.”Bolton’s manuscript also reportedly alleges that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo privately acknowledged there was little credence to Rudy Giuliani’s claims that former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was corrupt. Bolton also reportedly wrote that he told Attorney General William Barr that the president had mentioned him on a call with the Ukrainian president. The Justice Department has denied that Barr knew Trump suggested the Ukrainians coordinate their investigations with the attorney general.Bolton also reportedly wrote that he told Barr he had concerns Trump had granted personal favors to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and President Xi Jinping of China.NSC ResponseBolton’s memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” is scheduled to be released on March 17. But in a letter to Bolton’s lawyer, the National Security Council said the manuscript “appears to contain significant amounts of classified information” and should not be published as written.Bolton said Monday his intention isn’t to reveal classified material. Instead, he said he sought to tell readers what unfolded and allow them to decide whether it was appropriate.On other topics, Bolton criticized the administration’s approach to handling nuclear proliferation in North Korea as “a big mistake” and said the U.S. pursuit of negotiations with leader Kim Jong Un is “doomed to failure.” He also said Trump’s approach toward Iran is too lenient and a failure.Bolton left Trump’s administration in September after repeated disagreements with the president. He had advised Trump against a plan to hold peace talks with the Taliban at Camp David immediately before he was ousted, and Trump complained Bolton was “holding me back” in a campaign to depose Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.One of Bolton’s deputies, Fiona Hill, testified in the House impeachment inquiry that Bolton had called Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, a “hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up” for his conduct on Trump’s behalf in Ukraine.Bolton has publicly sparred with Trump since leaving the White House, disputing the president’s claims of success in nuclear negotiations with North Korea and defending former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly after the president attacked him in tweets.Bolton, ousted from the White House in September, is scheduled to speak again on Wednesday, at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.(Updates with Trump comment in third paragraph.)To contact the reporters on this story: Jennifer Jacobs in Durham at jjacobs68@bloomberg.net;Justin Sink in Washington at jsink1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum, Vince GolleFor 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.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) interjected during an interview Saturday to make the case that President Trump was not acquitted from impeachment because his Senate trial lacked additional witnesses and documents demanded by Senate Democrats.“You can’t have an acquittal unless you have a trial, and you can’t have a trial unless you have witnesses and documents — so he can say he’s acquitted, and the headlines can say ‘acquitted,’ but he’s impeached forever: branded with that, and not vindicated,” Pelosi argued.> His enablers in Washington may have chosen to betray their oath of impartial justice and cover up his abuses of power, but the fact remains: The President is impeached forever. Period.> > His final verdict is coming in November – from CA12 and all across America. pic.twitter.com/UxJ2CNU7hP> > -- Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) February 15, 2020Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) used the 53-47 Republican majority in the Senate to push for a trial that mirrored that of former president Bill Clinton with a vote to call witnesses after opening arguments from both sides. After days of back and forth, and a push to include testimony from former NSA adviser John Bolton, the Senate ultimately voted 51-49 to reject additional witnesses, as Senators Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine joined Democrats to call for more evidence.Speaking to CNN Saturday, the House Speaker went on to praise Romney for  voting with Democrats to impeach Trump. Romney explained his decision at the time as one made with “thorough analysis and searching,” including prayer. “I don’t pretend that God told me what to do . . . I’m subject to my own conscience,” he told The Atlantic.Trump singled out both Romney and Pelosi the day after his impeachment acquittal for using “their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong” while speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast. He also publicized the conclusion of impeachment by holding up copies of USA Today and The Washington Post with headlines reading "ACQUITTED" and "Trump Acquitted," respectively.> President Trump holds up newspapers with "ACQUITTED" and "Trump Acquitted" headline at NationalPrayerBreakfast. > > Full video here: https://t.co/vu9O8zRwvo pic.twitter.com/WocOH644L6> > -- CSPAN (@cspan) February 6, 2020

A member of Donald Trump's impeachment defence team has criticised the president, saying his support for attorney general William Barr's move to reduce a sentencing recommendation for his friend "complicated things.""I do think that the attorney general ... did send a strong message that when you have sensitive matters like a sentencing before a court where someone's liberty is at stake, it's important that the executive branch speak with one voice," Robert Ray said during a Sunday radio interview.

WASHINGTON -- House Democrats, recovering from their failed push to remove President Donald Trump from office, are making a sharp pivot to talking about health care and economic issues, turning away from their investigations of the president as they focus on preserving their majority.Top Democrats said that oversight of the president will continue, and they plan in particular to press Attorney General William Barr over what they said are Trump's efforts to compromise the independence of the Justice Department. But for now, at least, they have shelved the idea of subpoenaing Trump's former national security adviser, who was a central figure in the president's impeachment trial.In a series of private meetings over the past week and in written instructions she distributed to lawmakers Thursday before a recess this week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi made clear that the emphasis must shift."Health care, health care, health care," the speaker said, describing the party's message during a recent closed-door meeting, according to a person in the room who insisted on anonymity to reveal private conversations. She said they had to be laser-focused on getting reelected: "When you make a decision to win, then you have to make every decision in favor of winning."The move is particularly striking given how aggressively Trump, emboldened by his acquittal by the Senate, has moved to take revenge on his perceived enemies and push the limits of his power. But just as they did before the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats appear to have decided that focusing on Trump's near-daily stream of norm-shattering words and deeds only elevates him, while alienating the swing voters they need to maintain their hold on the House and have a chance at winning the Senate.Given that the House has already taken the most powerful step a Congress can take to hold a chief executive accountable -- impeachment -- Democrats reason that there is little more they can do. Some said Trump brings enough attention to his conduct all on his own."His erratic, corrupt, unconstitutional behavior speaks for itself at this point," Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said in an interview Friday.In the nearly two weeks since the Senate acquitted Trump, Pelosi has been urging her rank and file to emphasize the same three-pronged "For the People" agenda -- creating jobs, cleaning up corruption in Washington and, above all, bringing down the high cost of health care -- that won Democrats the majority in 2018. Democrats said the $4.8 trillion budget Trump released last week makes it easier to contrast his priorities with their own.The budget would cut funding for Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, food stamps and federal student loans. In the "recess packet" Pelosi distributed to lawmakers before they went home, she offered a list of suggested events in their districts -- like visits to a senior center, a food bank and an after-school program -- that could serve to highlight the impact of the proposed cuts."What the president has put forth is a destructive and irrational budget that intentionally goes after working families and vulnerable Americans," the document said.Pelosi also brought in Steven Rattner, an investment banker who advised President Barack Obama in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, to brief Democrats privately about ways to target Trump's economic record. Rattner showed a PowerPoint presentation, portions of which were shared with The New York Times by a person who attended, with statistics showing how income inequality has worsened under Trump and how the economic gains during his tenure -- largely in the stock market -- have failed to benefit working people and the middle class.Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, a freshman Democrat who represents a swing district in Pennsylvania, said that was what she would talk about when she was at home."We keep seeing more and more data about the recovery that the administration is touting, the great economy," she said. "But what hits people who have a lot of stock holdings is not hitting the families in my district. Over half of them are underwater at the end of every month now, once they pay for health care and child care and housing."The move to put impeachment in the rearview mirror comes after a dismal two weeks for Democrats. First, the Iowa caucuses turned into an electoral debacle, with no clear winner. Then a triumphant Trump delivered his State of the Union address and was acquitted the next day. Finally, Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, won the Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire, jangling the nerves of moderate lawmakers.After the Senate wrapped up Trump's impeachment trial without calling any witnesses, congressional Democrats were particularly curious about what testimony John Bolton, Trump's former national security adviser, might have offered. Bolton asserts in a tell-all book that is set to go on sale next month that the president withheld $391 million in security aid from Ukraine to pressure the country to investigate his political rivals, corroborating a charge that was at the center of the president's impeachment.Members of the House Intelligence Committee have begun discussing whether to subpoena Bolton; they might consider doing so, for instance, if the White House succeeds in blocking publication of his book, according to a committee official who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.But Jeffries said there had been "no discussion" of trying to compel Bolton to testify, either in the Judiciary Committee, on which he serves, or at the leadership level."It has not been an issue post-impeachment," Jeffries said, adding, "I've been very clear -- and I think the speaker has, and other leaders -- that our focus should continue to be on the 'For the People' agenda, which we articulated to the American people in advance of November 2018."That may be easier said than done. Trump has complicated Democrats' push to change the subject by mounting a brash and highly public post-impeachment campaign of retribution, firing witnesses who testified against him and objecting to the Justice Department's prosecution of his friend Roger Stone. After senior officials there overruled career prosecutors to recommend Stone receive a lighter sentence, four prosecutors who worked on the case resigned. Trump then cheered the attorney general on Twitter."The impact of the prosecutors resigning en masse was huge," Scanlon, who is also vice chairwoman of the Judiciary Committee, said in an interview Thursday before lawmakers left Washington. "That doesn't happen with career prosecutors, and it signaled really serious misconduct. So we will have to look at that."Democrats have summoned Barr to testify before the Judiciary Committee on March 31. In a harshly worded letter sent to Barr on Wednesday, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., the panel's chairman, signaled that Democrats planned to question Barr about overruling prosecutors on Stone's recommended sentence and Barr's willingness to accept information about Ukraine from Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, among other matters.Nadler told Barr in the letter that the panel had "grave questions about your leadership" at the Justice Department.Since then, the matter has only escalated. Barr, in an extraordinary rebuke of the president Thursday, said Trump's Twitter attacks on the Justice Department "made it impossible" for him to do his job. Trump fired back Friday, asserting via tweets that he had a "legal right" to interfere in Justice Department cases.And Bolton's book, which is scheduled to go on sale March 17, could yield additional revelations about the president's behavior with respect to Ukraine and revive calls for Bolton to testify.At the same time, cases related to other House investigations of the president, including examinations of his finances and whether he violated the emoluments clause of the Constitution by accepting payments from representatives of foreign governments who frequent his hotels, are working their way through the courts.The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether Trump can block the release of his financial records; a ruling is expected by June. An appeals court is considering whether Trump can order his advisers, including Donald McGahn, the former White House counsel, from complying with congressional subpoenas.Still, Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Mass. and vice chairwoman of the Democratic caucus, said Democrats believed the cure for Trump's behavior runs through the ballot box."A lot of this is going to be up to making sure that we are successful in November," she said.Democrats said they have never taken their eyes off their legislative agenda, in particular lowering health care costs. Even as they voted to impeach Trump, Democrats teamed up with him on a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada.Before they left for recess, Democrats unveiled a $760 billion infrastructure plan that they have said is aimed at jump-starting bipartisan talks with the administration on how to fix the nation's crumbling roads, rails and bridges. Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster, said the plan would give Democrats something tangible to talk about in their home districts. But the chances of any election-year deal with Trump on the issue are vanishingly remote.Garin said his surveys on impeachment showed that while most Americans were ambivalent about removing the president from office, a majority believe he engaged in wrongdoing and committed the acts that formed the basis for the charges against him. Even so, Garin urged Democrats to follow the plan Pelosi had outlined for them."House Democrats need to talk about the same issues they've been talking about all along, which include the cost of health care and the need to lower the cost of prescription drugs, and about cleaning up government so that it works for the people and not for special interests," he said.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

* More than 1,000 public servants decry presidential interference * Aide Conway claims justice system rigged against Trump * Robert Reich: assaulting justice, Trump has out-Nixoned NixonMore than 1,000 former US justice department officials, including some of the top government lawyers in the country, have called on attorney general William Barr to resign in the wake of the Roger Stone scandal.Some 1,143 alumni of the Department of Justice posted to Medium on Sunday a group letter that tore into Barr for “doing the president’s personal bidding” in imposing on prosecutors the recommendation of a reduced sentence for Stone, a longtime friend of Donald Trump who was convicted of lying to and obstructing Congress and threatening a witness in the Russia investigation.Barr, the officials said, had damaged the reputation of the department for “integrity and the rule of law”.The searing letter is the latest twist in a rapidly spiraling constitutional crisis that began earlier this week when Barr imposed his new sentencing memo, slashing a seven- to nine-year proposed prison term suggested by career prosecutors. In the fallout, the four prosecutors who had handled the case resigned in disgust.The letter carries weight because its signatories are exclusively drawn from past DoJ public servants. Among them are several former US attorneys appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents and section chiefs of key elements of the justice department including its antiterrorism unit.They write that it is unheard of for top leaders of the justice department to overrule line prosecutors in order to give preferential treatment to close associates of the president. They say that amounts to political interference that is “anathema to the department’s core mission and to its sacred obligation to ensure equal justice under the law”.Barr’s action amounted to an existential threat to the republic, the former officials say: “Governments that use the enormous power of law enforcement to punish their enemies and reward their allies are not constitutional republics; they are autocracies.”Barr tried to squash the perception he had been leaned on by Trump by calling on the president to stop tweeting about criminal prosecutions. He told ABC News such unrestrained comments were “making it impossible for me to do my job”.But speculation continued to swirl that Barr had kowtowed to the president. Demoralisation spread rapidly through the DoJ, intensifying when it emerged that Barr has ordered outside prosecutors to re-examine criminal cases against Trump associates including former national security adviser Michael Flynn.> The president thinks Andy McCabe should have been punished because he lied and lied several times to the investigators> > Kellyanne ConwayDespite palpable distress among both serving and former officials, and multiple warnings that Trump and Barr are threatening the very rule of law, the White House has continued to inflame the situation. Trump counsellor Kellyanne Conway on Sunday claimed the president was a victim of a “two-tier criminal justice system” that was actively undermining him and his associates.Conway used Fox News Sunday to pour fuel on the fire. The truth, she claimed, was that far from making a dangerous intervention in criminal cases involving his friends and perceived enemies, Trump himself is the victim of the politicisation of the justice system.“If you’re President Trump or people associated with him there’s prosecutions that have gone one way,” Conway said, alluding to the original sentence recommended for Stone which she contrasted with the decision announced by the justice department on Friday to drop charges against former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe.Directly contradicting her own claim that Trump, despite his “vast powers”, was not engaging in political interference in criminal cases, Conway proceeded to interfere in a criminal case. She called McCabe a “serial liar and leaker” and went on: “The president thinks that Andy McCabe should have been punished because he lied and lied several times to the investigators.”McCabe, a deputy to fired FBI director James Comey and a key figure in the Russia investigation, was fired by Trump in March 2018, two days shy of retirement.The furore over Trump ignoring protocols that have kept a distance between the White House and federal prosecutors since Watergate began when the president slammed the proposed sentence for Stone as “horrible and very unfair”. Hours later, Barr announced that he was imposing a reduced recommended sentence.Trump then made the constitutionally dubious claim that as president he has the “legal right” to stick his finger into any criminal case.On Saturday he duly re-entered the fray over McCabe, claiming falsely that DoJ inspector general Michael Horowitz recommended the former FBI man’s firing. Horowitz referred criticisms of McCabe to prosecutors but did not recommend dismissal.On Sunday Marc Short, chief of staff to vice-president Mike Pence, made further contentious comments on CNN’s State of the Union. Like Conway, he claimed without evidence that criminal justice was skewed against the president.“The scales of justice aren’t balanced any more,” he said, “when someone like Roger Stone gets a prosecution that suggests a nine-year jail sentence and candidly someone like Andy McCabe who also lied to federal investigators gets a lucrative contract here at CNN. People say, ‘How is this fair?’ and that’s the source of the president’s frustration.”The row has also become a major talking point among Democrats vying to take on Trump in November. Former vice-president Joe Biden told NBC’s Meet the Press: “No one, no one, including Richard Nixon, has weaponised the Department of Justice” as much as Trump.The crisis is personal for Biden, given the efforts to coerce Ukraine into investigating him and his son Hunter which led to Trump’s impeachment. Last week it was revealed that Barr has set up a channel to review information gathered in Ukraine by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani relating to the Bidens.“To have a thug like Rudy Giuliani reporting to the attorney general – I mean this is, this is almost like a really bad sitcom,” Biden said.“Any self-respecting Republican or Democratic top-flight lawyer would have just resigned by now, in my view. It’s just the things that are being done are so beyond the pale.”

WASHINGTON -- In an email a few days ago to the 270 lawyers he oversees, Nicola T. Hanna, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, offered a message of reassurance: I am proud of the work you do, he wrote.Other U.S. attorneys in the Justice Department's far-flung 93 field offices relayed similar messages of encouragement after President Donald Trump's efforts to influence a politically fraught case provoked the kind of consternation the department has rarely seen since the Watergate era. "All I have to say," another U.S. attorney wrote to his staff, "is keep doing the right things for the right reasons."But the fact that the department's 10,000-odd lawyers needed reassurances seemed like cause for worry all by itself.In more than three dozen interviews in recent days, lawyers across the federal government's legal establishment wondered aloud whether Trump was undermining the Justice Department's treasured reputation for upholding the law without favor or political bias -- and whether Attorney General William Barr was able or willing to protect it.Trump elicited those fears by denouncing federal prosecutors who had recommended a prison sentence of up to nine years for his longtime friend and political adviser Roger Stone. Barr fanned them by scrapping the recommendation in favor of a far more lenient one, leading the prosecutors to quit the case in protest.Barr then took to national television to complain that Trump's angry tweets were undermining him and his department's credibility -- a sign to some current and former lawyers that the department's freedom from political influence is in imminent danger.Their worries are compounded by the fact that people in Trump's circle have been mired in so many criminal or ethical scandals that practically any legal action on those cases could be seen through a political lens.As many of the department lawyers and some recently departed colleagues see it, Barr has devoted much of his authority and stature to bolster the president since he took office a year ago.In ever stronger terms, he has attacked the FBI's investigation into whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election. He has said it was mounted on "the thinnest of suspicions" and advanced despite a lack of evidence. The special counsel, Robert Mueller, ultimately found insufficient evidence that the president or his advisers engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Russia but documented their openness to Moscow's sabotage effort.While he has pledged that the department will not pursue politically motivated investigations, Barr said this month that he had created an "intake process" for the president's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to forward supposed proof of misconduct in Ukraine. Giuliani has claimed to have evidence damaging to former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.This month, Barr ordered reviews of several politically sensitive cases handled by career prosecutors in Washington, including that of the president's former national security adviser Michael Flynn, which has become a flash point for pro-Trump activists.Meanwhile, Barr's expansive view of presidential authority has helped Trump fight off congressional oversight. It was the Justice Department, for instance, that decided it was unnecessary to give Congress the whistleblower complaint that ultimately led to the president's impeachment.Barr's critics say those and other moves have all but invited increasingly aggressive demands from the White House. His supporters in the Justice Department counter that he has used his political capital to protect the department and national security interests. But they sound increasingly worried about whether he will be able to manage the expectations of an ever more volatile president.Barr's effort this week to scale back those expectations, officials said, was born of necessity. He is said to have told the president privately that he will not open politically inspired inquiries on Trump's behalf and that the president's public comments about specific criminal cases are damaging the department's work.When the president's public outburst over the prosecutors' sentencing recommendation for Stone made it clear that Barr's message had not sunk in, Barr and a few trusted advisers elected to deliver it again in a way that has repeatedly proved effective in grabbing the president's attention: on television, this time in a nationally broadcast interview with ABC News.By the end of the week, many at the Justice Department's headquarters were uncertain whether that interview would resolve what some called an increasingly untenable situation. Some steeled themselves for a stream of presidential invective or even Barr's departure in response.In the legal trenches where the department's lawyers handle controversial cases on a daily basis, some expressed relief that Barr had defended the department and tried to set boundaries for a president seemingly intent on erasing the red line between political motivations and individual criminal cases that has prevailed since Watergate."Thank God," one lawyer said. "I was beginning to be really upset over the sentencing, but I really admire that he told Trump to shut up," said another. A third wrote in a memo: "Barr was EXACTLY right."But others questioned Barr's sincerity, saying he was already too closely aligned with Trump's political priorities to accept his words at face value.One described Barr's timing as self-serving, saying that the president had attacked the department before but Barr spoke up only when he felt his own credibility was on the line. Another suggested that the best way for Barr to demonstrate his integrity would be to resign.All spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists, or for fear of job repercussions. A spokeswoman for Barr declined to comment.The supervisor of one team of prosecutors questioned whether the Stone case portended a presidential crusade to use the department's legal powers to damage his political enemies and help his friends. Is it "a one-off or a trend?" another supervisor in a different office asked.Some former senior officials predicted that government lawyers, especially those with politically sensitive cases, would face new skepticism in court about the department's motivations."I'm sure that some DOJ attorneys feel that judges are not going to look at them in the same way," said Mary McCord, a former assistant attorney general for the department's national security division. "And I'm sure there are judges who are going to wonder, 'Can we credit what you say, or is DOJ going to come back tomorrow and say something different?'"Generally, lawyers across the department's vast legal apparatus said they were simply trying to ignore the political drama unfolding in Washington and concentrate on their own work.In the capital, the Justice Department has been grappling with Trump's tweets almost since he took office. Amazon is suing the government over its loss of a $10 billion defense contract, saying Trump's tweets prove his animosity toward its founder, Jeff Bezos. A team of Justice Department lawyers moved to withdraw from a case over the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census after Trump blindsided them by declaring on Twitter that their assertions in court were "fake."Until last spring, the impact of Trump's outbursts about criminal prosecutions were blunted somewhat by the fact that he largely aimed them at Mueller, whose stature with Congress and the public made it unlikely he would be fired.Even then, Trump or his legal team hinted broadly at the prospect of pardons for some associates who faced criminal charges brought by the Mueller team. And Trump publicly praised one defendant, his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, even as a federal jury deliberated whether to convict him on financial fraud charges.But U.S. attorneys lack the political buffer that Mueller enjoyed. So Trump's attacks on the career prosecutors in Stone's case carry different weight.In his interview with ABC News, Barr seemed concerned about the possibility of more mass defections. Three prosecutors withdrew from the Stone case while the fourth resigned from the department entirely the week before Judge Amy Berman Jackson of U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia was scheduled to sentence Stone."I hope there are no more resignations," Barr said. "We, we like our prosecutors and hope they stay."As Trump has pointed out on Twitter, two of those prosecutors -- Aaron Zelinsky and Adam C. Jed -- helped carry out the special counsel's investigation, which Trump detested. Their supervisors reassured them this week that they would suffer no retaliation for withdrawing from the Stone case.Timothy J. Shea, a close ally of Barr's who took over this month as interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, sent his staff an email of support this week. "While there are times where reasonable minds may disagree, I respect the work that each of you do, and I will do my best to support our work," he wrote.Shea's role is especially fraught because the Washington office, the largest in the country with 300 lawyers, often handles politically sensitive cases and inherited several prosecutions begun under Mueller. At least some in that office privately complained that Trump and Barr both treated Shea's predecessor, Jessie K. Liu, shabbily.Liu, a Trump appointee, was viewed in the office as a leader who helped protect prosecutors from political meddling. But her relationship with other department officials grew strained, especially after she decided there was insufficient evidence to seek an indictment of Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI and a frequent target of the president, according to two people familiar with the situation.She was nominated for a top job at the Treasury Department and transferred there this month to await her confirmation. Then this week, the president decided to rescind her nomination, even over Barr's objections, according to three people familiar with the discussions.Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin delivered the news in a meeting, according to one of them. He gave her no reason for the reversal, and Liu resigned from the government.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) "must understand that National Security far exceeds politics," President Trump tweeted Thursday before immediately attempting to justify his suspension of a security program for his own political ends: "New York must stop all of its unnecessary lawsuits & harrassment [sic], start cleaning itself up, and lowering taxes. Build relationships, but don't bring Fredo!"The president here is "expanding his abuse of power to blackmailing U.S. states," accused Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.), who was among Trump's impeachment prosecutors. "In this case, he's holding New York state hostage to try to stop investigations into his prior tax fraud."It's not clear whether the lawsuits Trump referenced were those concerning him personally or New York State's suit over its exclusion from the "trusted traveler program." Either way, Trump, I'm certain, wouldn't see his tweet as blackmail. He referenced The Godfather, but the framework of his expectations for New York's cooperation seems a little older. Feudal, even. Trump's vision for federal-state interactions looks an awful lot like vassalage.Western Europe in the Middle Ages organized many power relationships through the vassalage system. The details varied by time, place, and looming threat, but the basic idea was a pledged, transactional relationship between a monarch and lesser lords. The king granted his vassals authority over portions of his land and promised to provide them assurances of security. The vassals in turn would supply knights and men for their liege's army and swear to him their allegiance, or fealty.Trump's ideas about honor and order in society are clearly medieval, as I've argued previously. Like our forebears of a millennia ago, he weighs the gravity of offenses more by the stature of the offender than the nature of the offense. As he ranks at the very top of the social hierarchy, it is all but impossible for Trump to conceive of himself as doing wrong. Allegations of his own corruption, I suspect, sincerely don't make much sense to him: Because of who he is, what he does must be right.Seeing the states as vassals fits with that perspective quite comfortably. If Trump is king and commander-in-chief of the military, then governors, with their smaller territorial responsibility and National Guard forces, must be his vassals. Read his tweet about Cuomo in this light and it all makes sense: It's a breach of the vassal's fealty to sue the king or refuse him the tribute (in this case, driver records that could be used for immigration enforcement) he wants for his security agenda. "Uncooperative" vassals are intolerable. If there are vassals in breach of their vassalage, it can't be blackmail for the king to require them to abide by their pledge. He is but maintaining the right order of society, as he was chosen by God to do."I am born in a rank which recognizes no superior but God, to whom alone I am responsible for my actions; but they are so pure and honorable that I voluntarily and cheerfully render an account of them to the whole world," said Richard the Lionheart in 1193 when he was tried by the Holy Roman emperor. Richard's protests of his innocence have an eloquence Trump lacks, but the self-certain indignation is recognizable.The trouble is Trump is not a king; it is not 1193; and to most of us — with more modern, liberal conceptions of societal order — Trump's behavior toward New York is suspect at best. That perception is reinforced by our national mythos of popular sovereignty, which survives despite two centuries of evolution of federal (and especially executive) power as well as its uncomfortable entanglement with antebellum proposals for compromise over slavery.Our constitutional federalism — in concept, if no longer in practice — explicitly inverts the power structure of the medieval system: In feudalism, power flows from God to the king to his vassals to the populace. In the United States, power is supposed to belong to the people, and we for our convenience delegate some powers to the states, which in turn delegate some powers to the federal government. "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people," affirms the Ninth Amendment, and the Tenth adds: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Power in America is supposed to flow up, not down.It usually doesn't, of course. Movements of popular protest across the political spectrum share the complaint that those in power persistently subvert the will of the people. And federal innovations in quietly coercing state behavior with financial incentives and penalties have transformed our system into something much closer to vassalage than we might like to admit. (New York University law professors Richard A. Epstein and Mario Loyola even echo medieval language in describing this arrangement at The Atlantic: "[States'] only viable option is to accept on bended knee the sovereign's offer to return their money back, in exchange for their obedience.")In that sense, maybe Trump is not so much a man out of his time. Maybe his monarchical dictates to New York are less a historical anachronism than an unusually indiscreet exercise of the United States' increasingly feudal federalism.Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.More stories from theweek.com The sidelining of Elizabeth Warren 6 books Erik Larson keeps returning to Everyone would fall for a Trump deepfake

The impact of Attorney General William Barr’s intervention in the Roger Stone sentencing won’t just be felt in the cases concerning President Donald Trump’s allies, current and former Justice Department officials warn. It’s cost the Justice Department one of its top public-corruption prosecutors at a time when public corruption is looking like a growth industry. That attorney is Jonathan Kravis. Kravis is the deputy chief of the fraud and public corruption section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, putting corruption within the federal government under his purview. Or he was until Tuesday, when Kravis resigned. The last straw for Kravis, who was part of Robert Mueller’s team that convicted Roger Stone of charges including lying to Congress, was the Justice Department overruling him on the recommended length of Stone’s prison sentence. Unlike his three outraged fellow prosecutors, Kravis didn’t just quit the Stone case, he quit the Justice Department.“It’s troubling and heartbreaking to see someone as talented and dedicated as Jonathan was known to be leaving under these circumstances,” said a federal prosecutor who requested anonymity during a precarious moment for the Justice Department. “His loss is all the greater given his focus on prosecuting fraud and corruption, at a time when both crimes appear to be on the march.” Before joining Robert Mueller’s team investigating Russian election interference and its connections to Trumpworld, Kravis, who had also served in the Justice Department’s public-integrity section, scored several anti-corruption victories against high-profile targets. In 2016, he helped convict former Pennsylvania Democratic Congressman Chaka Fattah on a host of charges including bribery, wire fraud and racketeering. A year earlier, he helped prosecute three aides to Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign for effectively bribing an Iowa state senator to endorse Paul ahead of the Iowa caucus. “He was probably one of the best public integrity prosecutors this country has,” a former colleague, Glenn Kirschner, told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell after the Stone prosecutors quit. Kravis did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. Just as important as Kravis himself is the position that he held. The public-corruption section within the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia has widespread prosecutorial authority over the federal government, as well as election activities. “In this administration, it along with SDNY [the Southern District of New York] are the two most important venues for public corruption prosecutions. It’s a significant loss to that office,” said Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. And it comes at a time when there is no shortage of public-corruption targets. Noah Bookbinder, the executive director of the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and a former Justice Department public-integrity line prosecutor, pointed to the president’s conflicts of interests deriving from the retention of his business empire as an early signal of toleration for brazen public graft. “There’s corruption at the federal government at a level we’ve perhaps never seen before,” Bookbinder said. “Somebody like Kravis resigning under the circumstances he did, and the entire team on the Stone prosecution withdrawing, is pretty clearly a protest that these line prosecutors believe DOJ was interfering for political reasons.” The Justice Department has spent all week denying the allegation. Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University, said Kravis’ departure was “bad for the nation,” but considered its broader importance to be what it augurs for the independence of the Justice Department. “In light of Barr’s change in the sentence recommendation for Stone, after Trump voiced his displeasure, this norm can no longer be assumed,” Gillers said. “That reality will discourage not only lawyers now working at DOJ from remaining, but also discourage good applicants who do not want to join a Department where their decisions may be subject to political interference.” “When someone like Jonathan Kravis leaves the office,” said Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney, “that means he will be replaced by someone hired by the new U.S. attorney, Timothy Shea, whose conduct today does not instill a lot of confidence in his integrity, in contrast to Jonathan Kravis, whose conduct is consistent with the best traditions of the independence of the Department of Justice.” (Shea is a former Barr aide whom Barr recently installed as acting U.S. attorney for D.C.)CREW’s Bookbinder added that losing respected public-corruption prosecutors poses a unique challenge. Their high-profile, politically powerful targets frequently argue in court that the prosecutors themselves are corrupt. “You really need people with expertise and credibility who can come in and do those cases and not have anyone question what their agenda is,” Bookbinder said.Bill Barr Is the Most Dangerous Man in AmericaBut instead, said Joshua Geltzer, a former Justice Department national-security official, “you’re seeing more people leave who dislike Trump and more [loyalists] coming in. Trump brought such a politicized, polarized vision about who runs the executive branch that his effect on those leaving and entering the federal workforce is more dramatic than previous presidents.” After Senate Republicans saved Trump from impeachment, the president and his allies accelerated their efforts at making Main Justice an adjunct of the White House. In addition to the Stone sentencing reversal, Barr is now undercutting Mueller’s guilty plea from former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, for lying to the FBI. Former acting attorney general Sally Yates, whom Trump fired after she warned that Flynn was a counterintelligence liability, wrote in The Washington Post on Friday that the president was using the Justice Department for “retribution or camouflage.”“The president has made it clear that his insistence on loyalty includes loyalty from the institutions that administer criminal justice, including DOJ and the FBI,” said NYU’s Gellers. “You might say without exaggeration that Trump wants personal loyalty from the rule of law itself.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Donald Trump has promoted a claim he will campaign for re-election on a message of “grievance, persecution and resentment” following his acquittal in the Senate of impeachment charges.The US president’s comments came just minutes after he shared on Twitter a video of a US mayor being caught on a hot mic going to the toilet.