Senators demand investigation after Trump AG mishandled Mueller report

A group of 12 Democratic senators has asked the Inspector General for the Justice Department to open an investigation into Attorney General William Barr’s mishandling of the Mueller report, and whether it shows that he is too biased to continue doing his job.

The senators, led by Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), sent a letter on Tuesday addressed to the officials charged with oversight of the DOJ. The letter asks for an immediate investigation into whether Barr’s actions “complied with Department of Justice policies and practices,” and whether he “has demonstrated sufficient impartiality” to continue overseeing the 14 criminal matters that Mueller referred to other investigators who answer to the DOJ.

The senators said that Barr has cast serious doubt on his own impartiality on a number of occasions — including right after he was appointed attorney general, when he refused to recuse himself from overseeing the Mueller investigation, despite having written a memo critical of the investigation before he was nominated.

The senators charged that Barr “selectively quoted” the Mueller report in his widely criticized four-page memo on the report. In that memo, they added, Barr improperly declared himself the final arbiter of whether there was enough evidence to show Trump committed a crime — even though Mueller said that was up to Congress.

The senators also called into question Barr’s decision to give Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani an advance look at the report, and the press conference he gave shortly before the report’s release — in which he acted more like a Trump defender than America’s chief law enforcement officer.

Along with Hirono, the letter has the support of senators like Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).

Barr disgraced himself throughout the process of the Mueller report’s release. And now senators are beginning the process of finding out, through a federal investigation, just how out of sync with the rule of law Barr was in working to help Trump.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.