Attorney General William Barr listens as President Donald J. Trump delivers remarks and signs the Operation Lady Justice Executive Order to address the issue of missing and murdered Native Americans in the Oval Office at the White House on Tuesday, Nov 26, 2019 in Washington, DC.
Jabin Botsford | The Washington Post | Getty Images
President Donald Trump on Friday tweeted that he has the “legal right” to meddle in court cases being handled by the Department of Justice, a day after Attorney General William Barr said on national television that the president’s tweets “make it impossible for me to do my job.”
Trump, in direct response to his administration’s top law enforcement official, challenged Barr’s recent assertion that he will not be “bullied” by anyone.
Trump said that while he could interfere in the department’s criminal cases, he has “so far chosen not to!”
The rebuke on Twitter marks the president’s first response to Barr’s extraordinary interview with ABC News on Thursday.
Barr has come under intense criticism in the days since he pushed federal prosecutors to revise their sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone, a longtime friend of Trump’s.
On Monday, those prosecutors recommended that a judge in Washington, D.C., district court sentence Stone to up to nine years in prison for crimes related to lying to Congress about his contacts with WikiLeaks during the 2016 presidential election.
That proposed sentence fell in line with federal sentencing guidelines; defense attorneys argued that Stone should receive a sentence of probation.
But hours after the sentencing memo was filed, Trump blasted the recommendation as a “disgrace.”
And hours after that, the Justice Department said it would file a new sentencing suggestion, calling for Stone to receive “far less” time in prison.
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