When Attorney General Bill Barr concluded his last day at the Justice Department on Wednesday, a quote from his 2019 confirmation hearing on the legality of certain presidential pardons resurfaced.
Asked by Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy if he believes that “a president can legally grant a pardon in exchange for the recipient’s promise not to incriminate him,” Barr replied, “No, that would be a crime.”
The attorney general’s response was one of three times during the hearing that he said it would be a crime to offer presidential pardon for false testimony.
Barr’s quote resurfaced shortly after President Donald Trump issued a second wave of pardons to legalists before heading to his Florida vacation home.
“Do you believe that a president can legally grant a pardon in exchange for the recipient’s promise not to frame him?” Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont asked during Barr’s confirmation hearing in January 2019.
“No, that would be a crime,” said Barr in response. https://t.co/nRQnEZoK3u
– The ghost of George Conway (@ gtconway3dg) December 24, 2020
Of the 26 pardons announced on Wednesday, Trump has granted leniency to 2016 campaign president Paul Manafort and longtime adviser Roger Stone. Both Manafort and Stone refused to cooperate with federal prosecutors during the investigation of special lawyer Robert Mueller in Russia.
The pardons cover only those crimes for which they were found guilty, meaning that both remain under investigation by the Department of Justice for their involvement with the Russians during the 2016 elections.
The pardons were met with criticism when it became clear how willing the president is to use his powers to protect those who have a personal bond with him or helped with his political goals.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle called on Trump for aggressively using his powers of forgiveness at the 11th hour for those who remained loyal during his presidency.
Republican Senator Ben Sasse called pardons “rotten to the core”. In a statement on Wednesday, the senator referred to Manafort and Stone as “criminals” who “blatantly and repeatedly violated the law and harmed Americans”.
Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse called Trump’s actions “the dirtiest exercise in forgiveness in history” in a tweet on Thursday.
Alex Wong / Getty
Barr resigned earlier this month after falling out of favor with Trump when he said his department found no evidence of widespread electoral fraud in last month’s election.
The tension between the two intensified after it was revealed that the Justice Department was investigating Hunter Biden during the election cycle, which Barr did not reveal to Trump.
Trump announced the resignation of the attorney general via Twitter on December 14.
“If Barr knew about those pardons when he wrote his letter of resignation last week, rereading the letter now, it is even more condemning for Barr,” said Ryan Goodman, former special adviser to the Department of Defense general council, on Twitter. “The pardons unravel the Justice Department’s fair trials for Trump’s corrupt purposes.”
Political analyst Bill Kristol suggested that Barr’s departure date on December 23 was strategically planned to accommodate Trump’s pardons. He hinted that Wednesday’s batch of pardons may be just the beginning of the president’s final plans before leaving office in January.
“Trump talked about a lot of pardons on Christmas Eve. Some of the names may have been too much for Barr – so they agreed to leave on December 23,” tweeted Kristol.
“But it can be more than pardons. Yesterday Barr suggested that there were a number of things he would not do that Trump wanted him to do as an AG,” he added.
Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, who is known to be a loyal ally of Trump, will replace Barr and lead the Justice Department in the last days of the Trump administration.
Asked during his own 2019 confirmation hearing whether he could withstand pressure from the White House, Rosen said: “If the appropriate response is to say no to someone, then I will say no.”
Newsweek contacted the Department of Justice for comment, but received no response before publication.