Jeffrey Toobin: Why Did AG Barr Inject Himself Into Roger Stone Case Instead of Thousands of Other Sentencing’s?
CNN Chief Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin offered some level of praise for Bill Barr on Friday morning, after the U.S. attorney general revealed his displeasure over President Donald Trump’s tweets that appear to be intrusive into a legal process that should work beyond the world of politics. But he followed with asking a pertinent question of the specific sentencing process involving Trump pal Roger Stone that deserves amplification.
Under heavy criticism for Department of Justice intervention in the Stone case, Barr insisted that Trump never asked him to interfere in any criminal case, but also ripped the commander in chief for tweeting about his department. During an interview with ABC’s Pierre Thomas about the effect of Trump’s tweets on criminal cases, Barr replied they “make it impossible for me to do my job.”
“I think it’s time to stop the tweeting about Department of Justice criminal cases,” Barr told ABC’s Thomas. “I’m not going to be bullied or influenced by anybody … whether it’s Congress, a newspaper editorial board, or the president,” Barr said. “I’m gonna do what I think is right. And you know … I cannot do my job here at the department with a constant background commentary that undercuts me.”
Toobin possesses a very well-respected legal mind and has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration and the Department of Justice under AG Barr. But on this day, he offered some praise. “Let’s be fair and say that the Attorney general was right. It does make it impossible for him to do his job in an appropriate way with the president injecting comments about individual cases like this.”
Toobin then turned to that which still remains unanswered, noting that “there are still a lot of unanswered questions about how the Justice Department works. And why, for example, just to pick one question, why did the Justice Department decide to inject itself at the top level in this sentencing as opposed to any of the thousands that go on every year in American courtrooms?”
“That’s a question we need an answer to, but if this really has an impact, if it does stop the president from injecting himself into individual cases, good. I’m skeptical that that’ll happen, but let’s see if it happens.”
Watch above via CNN.
