Hundreds of former Justice Department employees called on Attorney General Bill Barr to resign after he decided to drop the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn, Fox News informed.
“I want to make sure that we restore confidence in the system. There’s only one standard of justice,” Barr told CBS News’ Catherine Herridge last week. “And, I believe that… justice, in this case, requires dismissing the charges against General Flynn.”
The DOJ announced it had dropped its case against Flynn, accused of lying to the FBI about contacts with Russia, in a stunning development that came after internal memos were released raising serious questions about the nature of the investigation that led to Flynn’s late 2017 guilty plea of lying to the FBI.
“Attorney General Barr’s repeated actions to use the Department as a tool to further President Trump’s personal and political interests have undermined any claim to the deference that courts usually apply to the Department’s decisions about whether or not to prosecute a case,” read a statement on Medium signed by 1,956 DOJ alumni.
“We continue to believe that it would be best for the integrity of the Justice Department and for our democracy for Attorney General Barr to step aside,” the statement continued. “In the meantime, we call on Congress to hold the Attorney General accountable.”
The DOJ alumni pointed to their opposition to Barr’s interference in the Roger Stone case. Federal prosecutors initially suggested a lengthy sentence of between 87 and 108 months in prison, but DOJ leadership overruled the prosecutors in the case, submitting a new filing that stated the DOJ “respectfully submits that a sentence of incarceration far less than 87 to 108 months’ imprisonment would be reasonable” for Stone, a former Trump confidant convicted of seven felony charges, including lying under Congressional oath.
The DOJ alumni highlighted that they “unequivocally” supported the decision of Brandon Van Grack, a top Justice Department prosecutor and former member of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team, to withdraw from the Flynn case, just as they supported the decision of prosecutors to withdraw from the Roger Stone case.
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