In a stunning move Attorney General Bill Barr says he disputes a key finding in the Dept. of Justice’s Inspector General’s report on the Russia probe. The IG found that the Bureau had every reason to open the investigation. AG Barr disagrees.
The long-awaited report – a draft of which has already reached the mainstream media – is to be released on December 9. Some were surprised it debunked President Donald Trump’s March, 2017 lie that President Barack Obama wiretapped him.
Now, according to the Washington Post, “Barr has not been swayed by Horowitz’s rationale for concluding the FBI had sufficient basis to open an investigation on July 31, 2016.”
Barr’s public defenses of President Trump, including his assertion that intelligence agents spied on the Trump campaign, have led Democrats to accuse him of acting like the president’s personal attorney and eroding the independence of the Justice Department. But Trump and his Republican allies have cheered Barr’s skepticism of the Russia investigation.
Barr technically cannot force the Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, to change his report. That does not mean he cannot try, or issue his own “findings” to protect President Trump.
Read the Post’s entire report here.