Call for Resignation and Censure
Nearly 2000 former Dept. of Justice officials have signed on to a letter calling on Attorney General Bill Barr to resign over his “political interference” in the Mike Flynn case, as ABC News reports. The DOJ dropped the charges against President Trump’s former National Security Advisor, who had already pleaded guilty twice to lying to the FBI. He was also accused of acting as a paid, unregistered foreign agent to Turkey while serving on the Trump transition team.
“We continue to believe that it would be best for the integrity of the Justice Department and for our democracy for Attorney General Barr to step aside,” the letter reads. “In the meantime, we call on Congress to hold the Attorney General accountable.”
The former officials also are urging the House Judiciary Committee to “demand that [Barr] answer for his abuses of power. We also call upon Congress to formally censure Attorney General Barr for his repeated assaults on the rule of law in doing the President’s personal bidding rather than acting in the public interest. Our democracy depends on a Department of Justice that acts as an independent arbiter of equal justice, not as an arm of the president’s political apparatus.”
In the Flynn case the officials say “Attorney General Barr has once again assaulted the rule of law,” and urge the judge to deny the DOJ’s request to drop the charges.
“Attorney General Barr’s repeated actions to use the Department as a tool to further President Trump’s personal and political interests have undermined any claim to the deference that courts usually apply to the Department’s decisions about whether or not to prosecute a case.”
The list, currently at 1956 names and growing, includes former U.S. Attorneys and trial attorneys, the Chief of the Criminal Division at SDNY, Inspector Generals, Section Chiefs, and Special Counsels, and others.