By Michael Balsamo
Attorney General William Barr, one of President Donald Trump’s staunchest allies, is resigning amid lingering tension with the president over the president’s baseless claims of election fraud and the investigation into President-elect Joe Biden’s son.
Barr went Monday to the White House, where Trump said the attorney general submitted his letter of resignation. “As per letter, Bill will be leaving just before Christmas to spend the holidays with his family,” Trump tweeted.
Trump has publicly expressed his anger about Barr’s statement to The Associated Press earlier this month that the Justice Department had found no widespread election fraud that would change the outcome of the election. Trump has also been angry that the Justice Department did not publicly announce it was investigating Hunter Biden ahead of the election, despite department policy against such a pronouncement.
Barr in his resignation letter said he updated Trump Monday on the department's “review of voter fraud allegations in the 2020 election and how these allegations will continue to be pursued." He added that his last day on the job would be Dec. 23.
Trump said Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen, whom he labeled “an outstanding person,” will become Acting Attorney General.
Despite Trump’s obvious disdain for those who publicly disagree with him, Barr had generally remained in the president’s good graces and has been one of the president’s most ardent allies. Before the election, he had repeatedly raised the notion that mail-in voting could be especially vulnerable to fraud during the coronavirus pandemic as Americans feared going to polls.
But Trump has a low tolerance for criticism, especially public criticism, from his allies and often fires back in kind.
Barr, who was serving in his second stint as attorney general, sought to paint himself as an independent leader who would not bow to political pressure. But Democrats have repeatedly accused Barr of acting more like the president’s personal attorney than the attorney general, and Barr had proved to be a largely reliable Trump ally and defender of presidential power.
Before releasing special counsel Robert Mueller’s full report on the Russia investigation last year, Barr framed the results in a manner favorable to Trump even though Mueller pointedly said he couldn’t exonerate the president of obstruction of justice.
He also appointed as special counsel the U.S. attorney who is conducting a criminal investigation into the origins of the FBI’s probe of the 2016 election that morphed into Mueller’s investigation of possible Trump-Russia cooperation, following Trump’s repeated calls to “investigate the investigators.”
Barr also ordered Justice Department prosecutors to review the handling of the federal investigation into Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn and then sought to dismiss the criminal charges against Flynn, who had twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Trump later pardoned Flynn.
Barr’s break from Trump over election fraud wasn’t the first. Earlier this year, Barr told ABC News that the president’s tweets about Justice Department cases “make it impossible for me to do my job” and tensions flared just a few months ago when the two were increasingly at odds over the pace of the Durham investigation.
Trump had been increasingly critical about a lack of arrests and Barr was privately telling people he was frustrated by Trump’s public pronouncements about the case.
Trump was also said to blame Barr for comments from FBI Director Chris Wray on election fraud and mail-in voting that didn’t jibe with the president’s alarmist rhetoric.
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Associated Press writers Colleen Long, Eric Tucker, Jonathan Lemire, and Zeke Miller contributed to this report.
These are the headlines you Need2Know:
*President Trump meets with Russian President Putin in Helsinki, Finland, days after the indictment of 12 Russian operatives for trying to disrupt the 2016 election.
*A federal judge blasts the HHS giving them one more week to reunite 2,000 families at the border after the administration missed the initial deadline.
*Protests erupted in Chicago over the weekend after a popular barber was shot and killed by the police.
*Novak Djokovic and Angelique Kerber won Wimbledon titles over the weekend. And France took home the World Cup.
Cheddar's Hope King gives us the details.
Before his private meeting with Russian President VladimirPutin, President Trump tweeted that the U.S.-Russia relationship has taken a hit because of the federal investigation into election interference, which Trump says is a "Rigged Witch Hunt!" Trump also labeled the EU as "foes" of the United States over the weekend, further alienating allies that he has been criticizing for the past week. Cheddar's J.D. Durkin brings us the latest from Helsinki, Finland.
President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin started their heavily scrutinized one-on-one meeting in Helsinki, Finland, on Monday. "[Putin] has been in power for a very long time, almost 20 years now, he is a former KGB officer, and he's not interested in playing nice," says Natalia Antonova, former editor of The Moscow News. The meeting comes just days after the U.S. Justice Department indicted 12 Russian military officers for trying to influence the 2016 presidential election. Before the meeting, Trump described the federal investigation as a "Rigged Witch Hunt!"
While the Trump baby blimp flew over London, tempers flared on the streets. Many of the same passions that help fuel Donald Trump's popularity in the U.S. are very much alive and well in the UK.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's move Friday was the first time the probe has targeted the Russian government. The Russian-orchestrated conspiracy didn't, however, influence vote counts, says Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
The president denied that he criticized British Prime Minister Theresa May's handling of Brexit in an interview with The Sun newspaper, calling it "fake news." His comments come just a day after The Sun posted its recorded interview online. Trump and May held a joint press conference on Friday where they both confirmed that the UK and the U.S. would strike up a special trade deal after Brexit.
These are the headlines you Need2Know:
*President Trump is in England preparing for a joint news conference with Theresa May. While the duo dined last night, The Sun newspaper published a sit-down interview with the president where he criticized May’s handling of Brexit. Trump warned trade deals with England could be nixed if Brexit isn’t handled properly.
*FBI agent Peter Strzok was removed from working on the Hillary Clinton email probe and the Trump-Russia investigation after text messages were discovered in which he criticized the president.
*Stormy Daniels made an encore appearance at the same strip club she was arrested at the night prior.
*A Kansas City water park will not reopen after a 10-year-old boy died on a water slide.
*Serena Williams beat Julia Görges of Germany yesterday to reach her 10th Wimbledon final.
Cheddar Big News's Jill Wagner gives us the details.
President Trump, on his last day at the NATO summit in Brussels, declared that other members of the alliance had agreed to increase defense spending. Minutes later, however, French president Emmanuel Macron disputed those claims, saying that all members had committed to the previous spending target. Trump is now in London for his first visit to the British capital since winning the White House.
These are the headlines you Need2Know:
* Confusion at the NATO summit after President Trump said allies will add billions of dollars to defense spending. But French president Emmanuel Macron rebuffed those claims.
* Stormy Daniels was arrested after an alleged misdemeanor at a Columbus, Ohio, strip club. Her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, has also been working to reunite families at the southern border.
* The U.S. Senate voted yesterday on a non-binding resolution giving it a say on what tariffs are levied and against whom.
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* John Schnatter, founder and former CEO of Papa John’s, has resigned his chairman role after a racially-charged comment on a conference call.
* Americans made it to both the men’s and women’s Wimbledon semifinals, the first time since 2009.
Cheddar Big News' Jill Wagner tells us the latest.
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