The president broadly asserted his authority of the criminal justice system, attacking law enforcement officials and issuing pardons.
WASHINGTON — President Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr agree on one thing at least: The president is making the attorney general’s job much harder. What they don’t agree on: Mr. Trump sees no reason to stop.
Defying Mr. Barr’s pleas, the president renewed his public attacks on law enforcement on Tuesday, denouncing the prosecutors, judge and jury forewoman in the case of his longtime friend Roger J. Stone Jr. and defending his convicted former adviser Michael T. Flynn against Mr. Trump’s own Justice Department.
Explicitly rebuffed, Mr. Barr was left by the end of the day to consider his own future. He expressed dissatisfaction to associates and his irritation soon fed news reports that he was considering resignation if the president continued to publicly weigh in on individual prosecutions of his own associates. But it was unclear whether that would persuade Mr. Trump to back off or only get his back up.
The suggestions of resignation came at the end of a day when the president asserted his dominance over a justice system that had long sought to insulate itself from political pressures. Calling himself “the chief law enforcement officer of the country,” Mr. Trump demanded a new trial for Mr. Stone, urged federal judges to address the “tremendous” abuse of the special counsel investigation of his campaign and bypassed the traditional pardon process to grant clemency to celebrity convicts recommended by his friends, allies and political donors.
Mr. Trump insisted he had not directly interfered in the prosecution of advisers like Mr. Stone and Mr. Flynn, but declared again that he had the power to if he wanted and at the very least, he planned to speak out for them. “You take a look at what’s happening to these people,” he told reporters. “Somebody has to stick up for the people.”
In doing so, Mr. Trump acknowledged that Mr. Barr was right last week when he said that the president was making it “impossible” for him to do his work. “I do make his job harder,” Mr. Trump said. “I do agree with that. I think that’s true.”
But while he praised Mr. Barr’s “incredible integrity” and avowed “total confidence” in him, Mr. Trump dismissed the suggestion that he stop discussing individual cases. “Social media for me has been very important because it gives me a voice, because I don’t get that voice in the press,” he said. “In the media, I don’t get that voice. So I’m allowed to have a voice.”
Even as he refused to take Mr. Barr’s advice, Mr. Trump expressed no anger toward his attorney general and some officials said he understood why Mr. Barr felt the need to complain last week to ABC News about the presidential tweets. But The Washington Post reported on Tuesday night that Mr. Barr was thinking about stepping down if the president’s tweets continue, a story confirmed by an administration official and seemingly aimed at an audience of one.
Mr. Barr was especially irritated by the president’s tweet on Tuesday morning denigrating Judge Amy Berman Jackson shortly before she was to hold a conference call with lawyers in Mr. Stone’s case. Mr. Trump insisted in his tweet that she order a new trial for Mr. Stone but the Justice Department then disclosed that it opposed just such a retrial, a position personally approved by Mr. Barr.
The attorney general then had lunch with Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel and a longtime friend and colleague, in what officials said was a previously scheduled get-together. While Mr. Barr has been incredibly frustrated and has a limit to what he will put up with, people who know him said they doubted he would give in so quickly.
An abrupt departure by Mr. Barr would roil a Justice Department on track to deliver several initiatives important to Mr. Trump, including an
- overhaul of the F.B.I., a criminal investigation into the origins of the Russia inquiry and a
- continuing leak investigation into James B. Comey, the former director of the F.B.I. It would also leave the president with
- a vacancy at the top of the Justice Department that might be hard to fill eight months before the election.
Mr. Barr has taken heat from critics both inside and outside his department over what they see as the politicization of the law enforcement system. More than 1,100 former Justice Department officials called for Mr. Barr’s resignation, and a group representing the nation’s federal judges scheduled an emergency telephone conference to address the president’s attacks on one of their own.
The Justice Department dismissed suggestions on Tuesday night that Mr. Barr’s departure was imminent. “Addressing Beltway rumors: The Attorney General has no plans to resign,” Kerri Kupec, the department spokeswoman, wrote on Twitter. Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary, retweeted Ms. Kupec’s message.
The president told reporters on Tuesday that Mr. Stone, a longtime friend and off-and-on adviser, and Mr. Flynn, a campaign adviser before serving briefly as his national security adviser, were both “treated very unfairly.” He called Mr. Stone’s conviction “a very, very rough thing” and said that Mr. Flynn’s “life has been destroyed.”
Mr. Stone, who was convicted in November of seven felonies for obstructing a congressional inquiry into the Trump campaign’s ties to WikiLeaks, which disseminated Democratic emails stolen by Russian agents, is scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday. Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about his dealings with Russian officials but wants to withdraw his plea.
Asked whether he was considering pardons for Mr. Stone, Mr. Flynn or Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman convicted on tax and other financial fraud charges, Mr. Trump said, “I’m not even thinking about that.” But aides said he had broached the idea and critics said Tuesday’s pardons and commutations for convicted political figures like Rod R. Blagojevich and Bernard B. Kerik sent a clear message to the president’s associates that he may yet clear them.
“The real test will be, what does this president do with Stone, Manafort and others who are directly connected to him and who have the ability to provide information that is harmful to him?” said Eric H. Holder Jr., who served as attorney general under President Barack Obama.
On Twitter, Mr. Trump cited a “Fox & Friends” legal analyst, Andrew Napolitano, who has insisted that the president “has every right” to intervene in a criminal case. He quoted Mr. Napolitano’s calls for Judge Jackson to reconsider Mr. Stone’s case.
“Judge Jackson now has a request for a new trial based on the unambiguous & self outed bias of the foreperson,” Mr. Trump tweeted, quoting Mr. Napolitano.
Judge Jackson ruled Tuesday morning that Mr. Stone’s sentencing would go forward as planned on Thursday despite last-ditch motions by his defense lawyers. She said she would allow the defense to file an amended motion for a new trial, give the government a chance to respond with its own filing and schedule a hearing if warranted. Defense lawyers argue that juror misconduct led to an unfair trial.
The handling of Mr. Stone’s case has generated tumult throughout the Justice Department and grabbed the attention of Washington’s broader legal establishment. After Mr. Barr scrapped the original sentencing recommendation in favor of a lighter one, the four career prosecutors handling the matter withdrew from the case and one resigned from the department entirely.
As the president has repeatedly pointed out, two of the four prosecutors had worked for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, whose investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election dogged Mr. Trump for two years. The president attacked Mr. Mueller’s team anew on Tuesday, saying if he were not president, he would sue it.
The president said he had not intervened in Mr. Stone’s case, evidently making a distinction between his public commentaries and explicit orders, but added that he had the power to do so if he wanted. “Just so you understand, I chose not to be involved,” he said. “I’m allowed to be totally involved. I’m actually, I guess, the chief law enforcement officer of the country.”
Republican congressional leaders defended Mr. Barr. “Suggestions from outside groups that the attorney general has fallen short of the responsibilities of his office are unfounded,” Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Representative Kevin McCarthy of California said in a joint statement.
Mr. Trump’s attacks on Judge Jackson generated alarms in the judiciary. The Federal Judges Association, a voluntary organization, scheduled an emergency telephone conference for this week. Judge Cynthia M. Rufe of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania told USA Today that the group wanted to discuss “plenty of issues that we are concerned about.”
Mr. Trump countered that the judges should instead investigate misconduct in the Mueller investigation. “I hope the Federal Judges Association will discuss the tremendous FISA Court abuse that has taken place with respect to the Mueller Investigation Scam, including the forging of documents and knowingly using the fake and totally discredited Dossier before the Court,” he wrote on Twitter.
Donald J. Trump✔@realDonaldTrump
I hope the Federal Judges Association will discuss the tremendous FISA Court abuse that has taken place with respect to the Mueller Investigation Scam, including the forging of documents and knowingly using the fake and totally discredited Dossier before the Court. Thank you!
Mr. Barr said last week that the department had an “intake process” for information from Ukraine, prompting complaints that law enforcement officials were giving Mr. Giuliani special treatment because he has said he turned over evidence against former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son, Hunter Biden, about their dealings in Ukraine.
Mr. Giuliani led the campaign to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations into Mr. Biden and other Democrats, a campaign that ultimately led the House to impeach Mr. Trump for abuse of power; he was acquitted this month in a Senate trial.
The department routes all Ukraine matters through a central process, not to circumvent channels but to avoid duplicating efforts, Stephen E. Boyd, an assistant attorney general, clarified on Tuesday. The United States attorney in Brooklyn, Richard P. Donoghue, oversees the process, and his counterpart in Pittsburgh, Scott W. Brady, accepts any unsolicited information from the public, including from Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Boyd wrote in a letter to Congress.
Barr has told those close to Trump he is considering quitting over the president’s tweets about Justice Dept. investigations
So far, Trump has defied Barr’s requests, both public and private, to keep quiet on matters of federal law enforcement. It was not immediately clear Tuesday whether Barr had made his posture known directly to Trump. The administration officials said Barr seemed to be sharing his position with advisers in hopes the president would get the message that he should stop weighing in publicly on the Justice Department’s ongoing criminal investigations.
“He has his limits,” said one person familiar with Barr’s thinking, speaking on the condition of anonymity, like others, to discuss internal deliberations.
Late last week, Barr publicly warned the president in a remarkable interview with ABC News that his tweets about Justice Department cases “make it impossible for me to do my job.” Trump, White House officials said, is not entirely receptive to calls to change his behavior, and he has told those around him he is not going to stop tweeting about the Justice Department. They said Trump considers highlighting what he sees as misconduct at the FBI and Justice Department as a good political message.
The standoff between Trump and Barr intensified Tuesday when Trump declared in a string of early morning tweets that he might sue those involved in the special counsel investigation into his 2016 campaign and suggested that Roger Stone, his friend convicted of lying to Congress in that probe, deserved a new trial.
Hours later, a Justice Department official said prosecutors had filed a sealed motion in court arguing the opposite and that they had Barr’s personal approval to do so.
Barr had a previously scheduled lunch with the White House counsel Tuesday and was still the attorney general by day’s end — indicating that the president’s moves that day were not enough to push him to resign. But he and his Justice Department seemed to remain mired in a political crisis, with an uncertain future.
A Justice Department spokeswoman initially declined to comment. After this article appeared online, Kerri Kupec, a spokeswoman for Barr, said on Twitter, “Addressing Beltway rumors: The Attorney General has no plans to resign.” She did not address what Barr had told others.
White House spokespeople did not respond to questions for this report. Some people familiar with Barr’s thinking cautioned that he would not make a hasty decision to leave, and it is unclear what precisely would trigger him to take such a dramatic step.
It was only a week ago that Trump’s tweet about federal prosecutors’ recommendation that Stone should be sentenced to seven to nine years in prison created a crisis at the Justice Department.
After that tweet, Barr moved to intervene and reduce the recommendation. The four career prosecutors assigned to the matter quit the case, with one leaving the government entirely. Barr has insisted that he made up his mind to get involved before Trump weighed in, but he faced significant skepticism inside and outside the Justice Department.
Over the weekend, more than 2,000 former department employees signed a public letter urging Barr to resign over his handling of the Stone case and exhorted current department employees to report any unethical conduct to the inspector general. Jan Miller, who was the U.S. attorney for central Illinois from 2002 until 2005 under President George W. Bush, said he signed in part to remind rank-and-file Justice Department employees that “they’re not alone.”
“I’m sure it’s a very difficult time to be a line prosecutor in the department right now,” Miller said.
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham played down the letter’s significance, saying there were “obstructionists all across this government who are working against the president.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) also came to Barr’s defense in a joint statement.
“The nation is fortunate that President Trump chose such a strong and selfless public servant to lead the Department of Justice,” they wrote. “We expect that, as always, efforts to intimidate the Attorney General will fall woefully short.”
People close to Barr say he is unlikely to be moved by the letter from the former Justice Department employees, which bears the signatures of many who have long been vocal opponents of his. But Barr, the people said, is deeply concerned about morale inside the department, and that is in part why he chastised the president publicly to ABC News.
In the weeks before the interview, Barr had also privately asked the president to stop speaking publicly on Justice Department matters, a person familiar with their discussions said. But his comments have apparently fallen on deaf ears. The day after Barr’s ABC interview, Trump tweeted that he had the “legal right” to ask Barr to intervene in a criminal case.
Trump said Tuesday that he has “total confidence” in Barr and conceded, “I do make his job harder.” He also asserted, though, that he, rather than his attorney general, is “the chief law enforcement officer of the country.”
“The attorney general is a man with great integrity,” Trump said. “I chose not to be involved. I’m allowed to be involved. I could be involved if I want to be.”
Trump has raged privately for months about the Justice Department’s not charging those he considers political foes, and people familiar with the matter say he is particularly upset by the decision revealed last week not to charge former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe with lying to investigators exploring a media disclosure.
McCabe authorized the FBI to begin investigating Trump personally in 2017 for possible obstruction of justice in connection with the probe into whether his campaign coordinated with Russia, and Trump has suggested he might sue those involved. That case was ultimately taken over by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.
Trump also has complained to associates that he has not been able to view the findings of U.S. Attorney John Durham, whom Barr tasked with examining the Russia probe’s origins. Durham’s probe is ongoing, and he has not yet prepared any report detailing his conclusions, a person familiar with the matter said.
People familiar with the matter said Trump has no plans to remove Barr as attorney general, despite his frustrations. Apart from his ABC News interview, Barr has been a particularly loyal and effective Cabinet secretary for Trump, willing to take political heat for the commander in chief.
Barr absorbed significant criticism for casting the findings of Mueller’s investigation in a way that some saw as overly favorable to Trump, and for commissioning internal Justice Department reviews of politically sensitive matters, including the Russia probe.
But Barr has been persistently vexed by Trump’s tweets, and he saw the president’s commentary on Stone last week as something of a last straw.
Trump had largely refrained from law enforcement commentary over the holiday weekend before erupting once more on Tuesday morning. The president quoted at length Andrew Napolitano, a former New Jersey Superior Court judge and Fox News commentator who, by Trump’s telling, argued that Stone should receive a new trial because of “the unambiguous & self outed bias of the foreperson of the jury.”
“Pretty obvious he should (get a new trial),” Trump quoted Napolitano as saying.
Trump also reprised old attacks on the Mueller investigation.
“The whole deal was a total SCAM. If I wasn’t President, I’d be suing everyone all over the place,” Trump wrote. “BUT MAYBE I STILL WILL. WITCH HUNT!”
Grisham, the press secretary, said Tuesday that “the president’s obviously frustrated.”
“For three years, he has been under attack in one way or the other, and the Mueller report is another example of that,” Grisham said during an appearance on “Fox & Friends,” during which she also alluded to the Stone case. “I mean the foreperson of a jury was somebody who was very vocal about not liking President Trump or his supporters. . . . That’s scary stuff.”
The tweets came just before prosecutors and defense attorneys convened for a hearing in the Stone case to determine whether Stone’s request for a new trial needed to be resolved before his sentencing, scheduled for Thursday. Stone’s team had demanded the new trial Friday, one day after Trump suggested that the forewoman in the federal case had “significant bias.”
Trump was referring to Tomeka Hart, a former president of the Memphis City Schools Board of Commissioners and an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Congress. Hart has identified herself as the forewoman of the jury in a Facebook post, saying she “can’t keep quiet any longer” in the wake of a Justice Department move to reduce prosecutors’ sentencing recommendation for Stone.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is presiding over Stone’s case, decided that Stone will be sentenced Thursday, though the “execution of the sentence will be deferred” while she decides whether Stone deserves a new trial. The Justice Department is notably opposing Stone in that matter — with Barr’s approval — and a Justice Department official said that decision “was made independent of the White House.”
Trump told reporters Tuesday that he thought Stone had been “treated unfairly” but that he had not given any thought to pardoning him. Trump did issue several pardons to others Tuesday, including Rod Blagojevich, a former Illinois governor who was convicted on corruption charges in 2011 related to trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat, and Bernard Kerik, a former New York police commissioner jailed on eight felony charges, including tax fraud.
Asked whether Stone deserves any prison time, Trump demurred, saying, “You’re going to see what happens.”
Stone has been a friend and adviser to Trump since the 1980s and was a key figure in his 2016 campaign, working to discover damaging information on Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
A jury convicted Stone in November on charges of witness tampering and lying to Congress about his efforts to gather damaging information about Clinton. Stone’s were the last charges arising from Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Stone’s defense has asked for a sentence of probation, citing his age, 67, and lack of criminal history.