William Barr’s abrupt move to leave his post as Attorney General this week has raised fears among Justice Department veterans that Donald Trump will put further pressure on Barr’s successor to do him big and potentially risky political and legal favors.
Former justice department officials say they are concerned that Trump will rely on Barr’s less experienced successor, interim attorney general Jeffrey Rosen, to promote policies that Trump has suggested supporting, including appointing special advisers to investigate his son. President-elect Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and using the DoJ to investigate Trump’s baseless allegations of widespread electoral fraud.
Critics also fear that Rosen may face pressure from Trump to help get a legal opinion that would allow Trump to forgive himself by reversing a Justice Department view that dates back to the Nixon era and prevents presidential pardon. Such a move would likely provoke widespread outrage.
The growing concerns that Trump will try to elicit favors from Rosen, who became Barr’s deputy AG in early 2019 with no previous experience with DoJ, partly stem from Trump’s post-election rage in Barr, despite being arguably his ally of strongest cabinet in the race for the November Election
But after losing to Biden, Trump was furious at Barr for not publicly disclosing that Hunter Biden’s taxes were being examined by a U.S. attorney in Delaware during the 2020 campaign. Trump was also furious at Barr’s statement that he didn’t there was no sign of significant electoral fraud in the elections.
At his last news conference on Monday, Barr said he had no intention of appointing a special lawyer to investigate Hunter Biden or investigate Trump’s baseless allegations of widespread electoral fraud.
Attorneys general are authorized to appoint special lawyers and last week the Associated Press reported that Trump launched the idea of hiring conspirator and lawyer Sidney Powell, with whom Trump met at least twice recently to discuss far-fetched electoral fraud allegations, as a special lawyer to investigate false allegations, the election was rigged.
Paul Rosenzweig, a former prosecutor for Ken Starr when he was a special attorney investigating President Bill Clinton, said Barr’s departure after strong criticism from Trump seems to signal that Trump wants a “more malleable leader ahead of the DoJ – one who he will not resist his last-minute freaks ”.
“There are many things we can expect Trump to order the department to do in the last days of his presidency,” said Rosenzweig. “Most likely, a special lawyer will be appointed to probe Hunter Biden. Another is a new opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), reversing the Nixon-era decision that presidential pardons are illegal. “
Rosenzweig added that it remains to be seen whether Rosen “is as malleable as Trump hopes he will be”.
Before becoming Barr’s assistant attorney general, Rosen had been assistant secretary of the transportation department and spent many years doing corporate legal work at Kirkland & Ellis, where Barr used to work.
Former DoJ Inspector General Michael Bromwich predicts that Trump will try to pressure Rosen to do him favors, but he asked Rosen to ignore Trump’s calls, noting that Trump can act on his own in some matters as well.
“I don’t think we can imagine the range of inappropriate actions that Rosen could be asked to take,” said Bromwich. “Unlike Barr, Rosen is an unknown and enigmatic figure to the outside world, with no reputation outside the narrow circle of people with whom he worked. I doubt he wants his legacy to be obedient to the whims of a president who has lost his mind. “
Some encouragement from Rosen for Trump would be difficult to accomplish, and Trump could only ask his legal allies for advice, Bromwich added.
“I don’t think that an opinion from the OLC on the issue of personal forgiveness would be worth the exercise for anyone. If it were to conclude that self-forgiveness is constitutional, it would be rejected as a coerced opinion and further degrade OLC’s reputation, ”said Bromwich.
“I doubt that he [Trump] will feel the need to obtain such an opinion. He will instead choose to rely on the legal advice of Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and the rest of the legal misfits he has surrounded himself with.
“If I were Rosen, I would change my phone number and go on an extended vacation,” said Bromwich. “If that is not possible, he must make it clear that he will do nothing that violates his oath to the constitution or his fundamental sense of right and wrong.”
Other DoJ veterans add that any pressure from Trump on Rosen to appoint special advisers to investigate Hunter Biden or unfounded accusations of major electoral fraud had a good chance of being overthrown by Biden’s AG given Barr’s statements rejecting their need.
Paul Pelletier, a former acting chief of the DoJ fraud section in two administrations, said that any of Biden’s reported candidates for AG would have the power to remove a special lawyer for “good cause”, including “obviously politically motivated investigations”.
In addition to pressuring Rosen for favors, ex-DoJ say Trump’s own actions involving potential pardons from family members and political allies, which Trump is allegedly weighing in on others he did this week, could create legal headaches for him later that he leaves the office.
Some pardons can lead to accusations of obstruction of justice or stimulate incriminating testimony in the investigations of Trump and his business by two New York prosecutors when he leaves.
Barr noted in his 2019 confirmation hearing that a president’s broad powers to forgive carry risks. Although presidents have the right to forgive family members, Barr said that if forgiving a family member is “related to an act that violates an obstruction status, it can be obstruction”.
Donald Ayer, who was a deputy AG under George HW Bush, noted that Trump may need to consider that some pardons “may be a boomerang. He may have reason to worry that the people he has forgiven will be forced to testify, since, once forgiven, and perhaps given some other modest grant of immunity, the people he forgives will have no right to refuse to testify. against Trump or anyone else based on the fifth amendment. “