Barr Joins Trump in Excoriating FBI, Snubbing DOJ Watchdog
Attorney General William Barr said the decision to open a probe of then-candidate Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016 was “baseless”
(Bloomberg) -- Attorney General William Barr dismissed the key conclusions of his department’s inspector general a day after a report determined that the FBI was justified in probing whether then-candidate Donald Trump’s campaign conspired with Russia in the 2016 election.
In a pair of interviews on Tuesday, Barr described the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s work in the 2016 election probe as “flimsy,” “baseless,” and a “complete sham” marred by “inexplicable behavior” and “gross abuse.” He said investigators jumped to conclusions and should have gone to the Trump campaign as soon as concerns about foreign contacts were raised.
“It quickly became apparent that it was a travesty,” Barr said about the FBI probe at an event in Washington hosted by the Wall Street Journal. “It’s hard to look at this stuff and not think it was a gross abuse.”
The comments by the nation’s top law enforcement officer are highly unusual given that he’s going against the findings of an apolitical investigation that cleared an agency under his command, and is now fueling criticism that he’s not independent but rather a surrogate for Trump.
Barr signaled that an inquiry he launched into the FBI’s efforts during the 2016 election will cast a much wider net than the Justice Department’s internal watchdog was able to do. That ongoing probe, by U.S. Attorney John Durham, will determine whether there was political bias and will look at what other agencies, such as the CIA, were doing when the inquiry began, Barr said.
“There was a lot of swirl of activity going on at this time,” Barr said. “It wasn’t just in the FBI.”
‘Improper Motive’
While Barr said he believes the FBI should have given the Trump campaign a defensive briefing before, or instead of, launching an investigation, Inspector General Michael Horowitz said such a move was considered and ruled out for fear of potentially tipping off people inside the campaign engaging in improper behavior.
Horowitz backed the FBI’s decision to open the probe, but he also cited 17 “significant errors or omissions” concerning FBI efforts to obtain secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against a former Trump campaign aide.
Barr said that while Horowitz didn’t find evidence of “improper motive” by the FBI, he said that doesn’t mean some sort of political bias wasn’t present. In that and other criticisms, Barr also breathed new life into allegations that Trump and his conservative allies have been promoting for years, undercutting Horowitz and FBI Director Christopher Wray, who the president singled out for attack earlier Tuesday.
“Mr. Barr is acting in incredibly bad faith,” in framing his criticisms of the Horowitz report, Democratic Senator Mark Warner said, calling it a “revisionist campaign” by the attorney general.
In his report, Horowitz concluded the FBI followed appropriate rules when it opened an investigation, dubbed Crossfire Hurricane, into four people associated with the campaign: George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn.
Barr said presidential campaigns are frequently in touch with foreign people and that there are regularly signs of illegal foreign money coming into those campaigns. But, he added, “we don’t automatically assume these campaigns are nefarious and acting in league with foreign powers.”
Higher Bar
He also suggested that the bar for investigating the campaign should have been higher given that the administration at the time, under President Barack Obama, was Democratic while Trump was the Republican nominee. He didn’t address the FBI investigation undertaken around the same time into Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
“Our nation was turned on its head for three years based on a completely bogus narrative that was largely fanned and hyped by an irresponsible press,” Barr said in an interview Tuesday on MSNBC. “When you step back here and say, ‘What was this all based on,’ it’s not sufficient.”
Barr’s comments and the inspector general report come as the Trump administration finds itself facing impeachment articles in the House of Representatives heading into the 2020 election year.
Asked about the two articles of impeachment introduced by Democrats on Tuesday, Barr would only comment on the one which alleges the president obstructed justice by refusing to comply with Congressional subpoenas and inquiries related to his dealings with Ukraine. Barr said the administration has invoked a “legal privilege” in not complying with the House Democrats’ demands for information.
To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Strohm in Washington at cstrohm1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, Kevin Whitelaw
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