Former Mueller Prosecutor: Attorney General Barr’s Moves ‘Not a Democrat or Republican’ Concern
Andrew Weissman, a former prosecutor for special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, weighed in on the latest developments involving Attorney General Bill Barr, the Department of Justice and President Donald Trump.
The Washington Post reported Friday that Barr had tasked outside prosecutors to “review the handling of the criminal case against former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn and other sensitive national security and public corruption prosecutions in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington.”
Weissman said what’s happening at the Department of Justice is “not a Democrat/Republican issue.”
“I have served under Democratic administrations and Republican administrations at the Department of Justice. I worked on the Enron case, which was highly, highly political in the sense that there was enormous interest in the press about whether Ken Lay, the then-chairman of the firm, was connected to…Vice President [Dick Cheney].”
Weissman explained that in that case, there was “not any political pressure put on us at all.”
“It was classic Department of Justice, which is you follow the facts, you follow the law. If it’s a warranted investigation, it will be brought. And that whole investigation was led by Republicans who had integrity. So this really isn’t what we’re living through now.”
Weissman then brought up how all four prosecutors in the Roger Stone case quit after the government changed its sentencing recommendation following a tweet by the president calling for leniency.
“The question I would have for [Barr] is, tell me one other time other than for Flynn and for Stone and actually for Paul Manafort — not in connection with sentencing but in terms of where he was housed — when have you ever reached in as the Attorney General to any other case? I mean it’s remarkable, and it’s sort of obvious if you look at the facts; it’s very hard not to be cynical and say it’s obvious what’s happening.”
Watch the video above, via MSNBC.
