WASHINGTON — Lawyer Normal William P. Barr dismissed President Trump’s makes an attempt to rebrand the Russia investigation as a prison plot engine
WASHINGTON — Lawyer Normal William P. Barr dismissed President Trump’s makes an attempt to rebrand the Russia investigation as a prison plot engineered by former President Barack Obama, saying on Monday that he anticipated no prices towards both Mr. Obama or former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. because of an investigation into how their administration dealt with Russian election interference.
“So long as I’m legal professional normal, the prison justice system is not going to be used for partisan political ends,” Mr. Barr mentioned throughout a information convention saying that the gunman in final 12 months’s capturing at Florida navy base had links to Al Qaeda.
“I don’t expect Mr. Durham’s work will lead to a criminal investigation of either man,” Mr. Barr said. “Our concern over potential criminality is focused on others.”
Mr. Barr’s comments served as an unmistakable rebuttal to escalating efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to reframe the Russia investigation as a plot to sabotage his presidency by Mr. Obama, Mr. Biden and officials in their administration. Mr. Trump has targeted Mr. Obama in a way that no modern sitting president has, accusing his predecessor of unspecified crimes under a vague but politically charged catchphrase, “Obamagate.”
But while Mr. Barr was unwilling to fuel speculation that the Justice Department will target Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden, he himself has done perhaps more than any other Trump administration to undermine the overall credibility of the Russia investigation.
The attorney general’s handling of the Russia inquiry has come under fire since he first emphasized its findings in a way that was more favorable to Mr. Trump than investigators had found.
He has also intervened in cases involving former Trump advisers, including moving this month to withdraw the case against Michael T. Flynn, who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. The highly unusual effort spurred accusations that Mr. Barr was further politicizing law enforcement and prompted a federal judge to appoint an outsider to oppose the department in the case.
Mr. Barr emphasized on Monday, as he has previously, that he believes that law enforcement and intelligence officials unfairly targeted Mr. Trump as they sought in 2016 to understand links between his campaign and Russia.
“We saw two different standards of justice emerge: one that applies to President Trump and his associates, and the other that applied to everybody else,” Mr. Barr said. “We can’t allow this ever to happen again.”
Mr. Barr has explained his undoing of the Flynn case and other moves, like intervening to recommend a more lenient sentence for the president’s longtime friend Roger J. Stone Jr., as correcting overreach by other law enforcement officials. Mr. Stone was convicted of seven felonies in a bid to impede a congressional inquiry that threatened the president.
Mr. Barr called the Russia investigation and the investigation of Mr. Trump “a grave injustice” that was “unprecedented in American history.” He also spoke of a trend in recent decades of “increasing attempts to use the criminal justice system as a political weapon.”
“This is not a good development,” he said. “This is not good for our political life. And it’s not good for the criminal justice system.”
Even so, Mr. Barr stopped short of criminally implicating Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden. “Not every abuse of power, no matter how outrageous, is necessarily a federal crime,” Mr. Barr said.
He said that voters should be able to choose between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden, his likely general election opponent, “based on a robust debate of policy issues,” rather than “efforts to drum up criminal investigations of either candidate.”