 |
| William Barr is to be Donald Trump's Attorney General. He served as George H.W. Bush's AG. |
REAL CLEAR POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday he will nominate William Barr, the late President George H.W. Bush’s attorney general, to serve in the same role.
Democrats will presumably seek reassurances during confirmation proceedings that Barr, who as attorney general would be in a position to oversee Mueller’s investigation, would not do anything to interfere with the probe. An attorney general opposed to the investigation could theoretically move to cut funding or block certain investigative steps.
Barr was attorney general between 1991 and 1993, serving in the Justice Department at the same Mueller oversaw the department’s criminal division. Barr later worked as a corporate general counsel and is currently of counsel at a prominent international law firm, Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
Still, while in private practice, Barr has occasionally weighed in on hot-button investigative matters in ways that could prompt concerns among Democrats.
He told The New York Times in November 2017, in a story about Sessions directing his prosecutors to look into actions related to Clinton, that “there is nothing inherently wrong about a president calling for an investigation” — though Barr also said one should not be launched just because a president wants it.
He also said there was more reason to investigate a uranium deal approved while Clinton was secretary of state in the Obama administration than potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
“To the extent it is not pursuing these matters, the department is abdicating its responsibility,” Barr told the newspaper.
He also wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post in May 2017 defending Trump’s decision to fire former FBI Director James Comey, one of the actions Mueller has been examining for possible obstruction of justice.
He was quoted two months later in a Post story expressing concern that members of Mueller’s team had given contributions to Democratic candidates.“In my view, prosecutors who make political contributions are identifying fairly strongly with a political party,” Barr said. “I would have liked to see him have more balance on this group.”
Barr had been on a White House short list of contenders for several weeks, said a person with knowledge of internal discussions who was not authorized to speak publicly. But some inside the White House were concerned that Barr was too aligned with establishment GOP forces.