What Barr, if confirmed, might mean for the Russia investigation.
President Donald Trump nominated William Barr to be the next US attorney general on Friday — an event that could have major implications for the Mueller probe.
Barr, a veteran Republican lawyer who served as attorney general under President George H. W. Bush, will be returning to the Justice Department at a strange time, as Trump has spent much of the past year feuding with the agency’s head and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Sessions recused himself in March 2017 from the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia. Trump saw Sessions as insufficiently loyal, since he failed to protect him from the Mueller probe.
Barr, if confirmed, will take over for Sessions and (barring another recusal) oversee the Mueller investigation. Barr was Mueller’s boss at the Justice Department, and, as attorney general under Bush, had some experience with special counsel investigations.
The question of Barr’s views on the Mueller probe and how he will withstand pressure from Trump will likely receive a lot of attention in his future confirmation hearing, especially given Barr’s past comments.
In 2017, he suggested that Hillary Clinton should be investigated, and he has defended the firing of FBI Director James Comey .
Barr’s nomination will also help solve — sooner rather than later — the problem of Matthew Whitaker, Sessions’s former chief of staff whom Trump selected to be acting attorney general. The pick was controversial because of Whitaker’s background, and because Trump bypassed the normal order of succession to put Whitaker, who was close with the White House, in charge.
Whitaker will most likely remain in his post until Barr is confirmed by the Senate. The high-profile nature of the Mueller investigation — and Trump’s constant public relations war against it — means that Barr will likely come under heightened scrutiny during the confirmation process.
William Barr joined the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in 1989 and rose through the ranks quickly, becoming deputy attorney general in April of that year and then attorney general in 1991, under President George H. W. Bush.
He served until 1993, and had his own dealings with presidential investigations during that time. During Bush’s tenure, independent counsel Lawrence Walsh was investigating the Iran-Contra scandal, which began under Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Some in the Bush administration feared that the investigation was getting too close to Bush.
As t he Washington Post’s Aaron Blake reported, after an untimely indictment of Caspar Weinberger, Regan’s defense secretary, days before the 1992 election (which Bush lost), Barr reportedly considered firing Walsh for “misconduct,” though he never did.
Barr was also involved with some controversial pardons of people involved in the Iran-Contra scandal at the tail end of the Bush administration — a particularly concerning sign since Trump could very well try to use his pardon powers to help associates, including Paul Manafort, who’ve been caught up in the Russia probe.
