Against Wishes Of Barr, Trump Fires Off More Tweets About The Justice Department

John Wagner, Matt Zapotosky and Devlin Barrett of The Washington Post wrote:Against the wishes of Attorney General William P. Barr, President Trump continued to tweet Wednesday about the Justice Department, relaying the sentiments of conservative allies that Barr should “clean house” and target those involved in the Russia investigation.

Amid a spate of more than a dozen morning tweets and retweets, Trump also shared the views of a conservative commentator who noted past instances of presidents getting involved in criminal cases and asserted that Trump has a “constitutional obligation” to speak up about corruption in the department.

The tweets could put Trump further at odds with Barr, who has publicly and privately warned the president about weighing in on Justice Department criminal cases on Twitter and has told those close to Trump that he is considering resigning over the president’s refusal to stop doing so.

But Trump stopped short of directly criticizing Barr on Wednesday, as he largely relayed sentiments of others, rather than his own, including some that urged the attorney general to take particular actions and others that were generally positive about him.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on Trump’s tweets Wednesday.

Trump retweeted several Twitter posts from Tom Fitton, president of the conservative activist group Judicial Watch, who claimed Trump was “the victim of a seditious conspiracy” by the Justice Department and FBI that led to the investigation of possible coordination between his 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.

“Barr should clean house at DOJ,” Fitton said. In another tweet shared by Trump, Fitton asserted that Trump “has a positive constitutional obligation to speak up about DOJ corruption.”

In yet another post, Fitton bolstered Trump’s expansive view of his power over the Justice Department. In a tweet sent hours after Trump told reporters that he is “the chief law enforcement officer of the country,” Fitton cited instances in which several of Trump’s predecessors had directed the Justice Department to take various actions.

His examples included President George H.W. Bush ordering the department to investigate police in the wake of the 1992 riots in Los Angeles after a jury acquitted four police officers for usage of excessive force in the arrest and beating of Rodney King.

Trump also retweeted a suggestion by Fitton that Trump pardon his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI about his contacts with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and is awaiting sentencing.

On Tuesday, Trump used his sweeping presidential clemency powers to pardon a list of boldface names, including convicted junk bond king Michael Milken and former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik. He also commuted the sentences of several other people, including disgraced politician Rod R. Blagojevich.

Trump’s retweets Wednesday also included several from conservative congressional allies, including Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), who expressed hope that the Justice Department would soon hold officials responsible who “weaponized the awesome powers at their disposal in order to target the Trump campaign” during the Russia investigation.

“There must be JUSTICE. This can never happen to a President, or our Country, again!” Trump added in his own words.

Trump also highlighted grievances about his impeachment by the House for seeking investigations that could benefit him politically from Ukraine at a time when U.S. military aid was being withheld to the country.

In another Zeldin tweet shared by Trump, the congressman said that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) should be “stripped of their gavels” and that “the Dems should be removed from power in Nov for their corrupt, rigged, rushed impeachment, hijacking Congress to appease a radical activist liberal base.”

Trump was acquitted by the Senate on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Schiff and Nadler were among the House impeachment managers.

Late last week, Barr publicly warned Trump in a remarkable interview with ABC News that his tweets about Justice Department cases “make it impossible for me to do my job.”

Trump, White House officials said, is not entirely receptive to calls to change his behavior, and he has told those around him he is not going to stop tweeting about the Justice Department. They said Trump sees highlighting FBI and Justice Department misconduct as a good political message.

On Tuesday, Trump declared in a string of early morning tweets that he might sue those involved in the special counsel’s investigation into his 2016 campaign and suggested that Roger Stone, his friend convicted of lying to Congress in that probe, deserved a new trial.

He later acknowledged to reporters that his tweeting does make Barr’s job more difficult.