White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham weighed in on the calls by former Justice Department (DOJ) officials for Attorney General William Barr to resign.
“It didn’t surprise me. A lot of those [signees] are career [employees]. There are many people who hailed AG Barr when we first appointed him, and he’s been doing a great job,” Grisham said in response to the online letter.
The press secretary added that Trump has made his position clear on many different cases but ultimately leaves it to the attorney general “to do his work.”
“He’s made it clear that the two things are separate, but the president will always, always tell the American people what his opinion is,” she said.
She added that she wasn’t aware of anything about Barr potentially stepping down.
DOJ prosecutors originally recommended seven to nine years in prison for Stone, who was convicted of lying to and obstructing Congress and witness tampering. The Justice Department, however, intervened in the case, calling the recommendation “excessive and unwarranted.”
The department then filed a revised sentencing memorandum that asked for “a sentence of incarceration far less than 87 to 108 months’ imprisonment,” but didn’t offer a specific prison recommendation.
Four prosecutors involved withdrew from the Stone case on the same day as the DOJ’s announcement.
The attorney general also criticized the president about his Twitter posts in the wake of one of Trump’s posts about the sentencing of former campaign adviser Roger Stone.
“To have public statements and tweets made about the department, about people in the department, our men and women here, about cases pending in the department, and about judges before whom we have cases, make it impossible for me to do my job,” Barr said, “and to assure the courts and the prosecutors in the department that we’re doing our work with integrity.”
The Justice Department and the Federal Judges Association didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment about the report.
