Trump's attorney general pick looks more and more like an anti-Mueller zealot
By Aaron Blake
December 20 at 8:46 AM
We knew that President Trump’s pick for attorney general had offered commentary that was suspiciously critical of the Justice Department’s treatment of Trump. We didn’t know nearly how far it went.
News broke Wednesday night that William Barr had written an unsolicited 20-page memo to DOJ arguing that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s obstruction of justice investigation was not just unwarranted but “grossly irresponsible,” “fatally misconceived” and carried “potentially disastrous implications.”
The former attorney general, who held that job in the George H.W. Bush administration, reportedly disclosed the memo to Trump after Trump nominated him for his old job, noting that it was likely to come up in his confirmation hearing.
The things Barr says in the memo are very much in line with other quotes that have surfaced. Barr has been a proponent of executive authority and said Trump did nothing wrong in firing FBI Director James B. Comey — perhaps the central event in the obstruction probe. He has also said there is more basis to investigate Bill and Hillary Clinton on Uranium One than there was to investigate the Trump campaign for possible collusion with Russia. He told reporters the Justice Department was “abdicating its responsibility” by not pursuing the Clintons more. He criticized Mueller’s team for its political contributions to Democrats.
All of these things are in line with what Trump himself has said — and suggest Barr would perhaps take a softer line when it comes to Mueller’s probe.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-fix/trumps-attorney-general-pick-looks-more-and-more-like-an-anti-mueller-zealot/2018/12/20/c5687358-7ec2-4f99-a646-65ed8db5b289_story.html