Rising risk of impeachment tests ties between Attorney General William Barr and President Trump
WASHINGTON — For a while at least, he seemed to have found his Roy Cohn, a lawyer to defend him against his accusers and go after his enemies. But the relationship between President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr may be growing more complicated with the rising threat of impeachment.
But the impeachment debate seems to be testing those ties as House Democrats investigate whether Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors by using his office to pressure Ukraine to provide incriminating information about former Vice President Joe Biden and other Democrats. The Justice Department concluded there was no campaign finance violation, but Barr has not gone beyond that.
Late Thursday, Hogan Gidley, a White House spokesman, said, “It was President Trump who decided to release the entire, unredacted phone call showing everyone he’s done nothing wrong, and while shady sources attempt to push a false narrative of division, the president has a great relationship with the attorney general and respects his decades of service to this country.”
It would be “highly inappropriate for Attorney General Barr to exonerate the president on a controversy that was still unfolding,” Turley said. Similarly, Barr recommended that Trump release the reconstructed transcript of the July 25 call with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine, arguing that it would show that Trump did nothing wrong. Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel, agreed with that recommendation, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo argued against releasing the call record, saying that it would hurt American diplomacy if foreign leaders thought their conversations with the president might be made public.
Democrats have seized on that to say it made clear the president was pressing a foreign power for help against his domestic political rivals. In the days that followed, reports emerged about Barr’s own contacts with foreign leaders for help investigating the origins of the Russia interference investigation.
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