司法部长威廉·巴尔(William Barr)将于12月23日从司法部辞职，结束现代史上最具争议的司法部长任期之一，此前他与唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)总统之间现已恶化的关系持续数月紧张。特朗普对巴尔拒绝宣布对特朗普的政治对手进行调查以及对2020年选举中普遍欺诈的毫无根据的指控感到愤怒。
自巴尔第二次担任国家司法部长以来，一年半多来，他一直在努力破坏对俄罗斯干预2016年选举的调查，并一再干预与特朗普直接相关的事务，这引起了人们的抨击。
在他与特朗普的关系冷却之前，巴尔已经被证明是总统最可靠的捍卫者之一。
巴尔周一在白宫亲手递交给特朗普的辞职信中，没有提到与特朗普的紧张关系，而是对这位总统大加赞赏，他几周来一直公开发泄对巴尔的不满。
巴尔写道:“我很自豪能在你们为美国人民带来的众多成功和前所未有的成就中发挥作用。”。"你的记录更具历史意义，因为你是在面对无情、无情的抵抗时完成的。"
在采访中，巴尔经常附和特朗普的毫无根据的说法，即一个腐败的奥巴马政府官员阴谋推翻他的选举。
今年夏天，在特朗普公开呼吁警方严厉打击乔治·弗洛伊德(George Floyd)去世后破坏财产和造成暴力的暴徒时，巴尔在全国各地派遣了联邦执法人员，甚至下令驱散聚集在白宫前的一群和平抗议者，为特朗普在附近的一座教堂举行拍照铺平了道路。
在他最近的声明证实国务院没有发现可能推翻2020年选举结果的广泛欺诈之前，在新冠肺炎大流行期间，巴尔是反复推动外国能够将数百万张选票邮寄到美国的阴谋之一。
“他终于停止了他所参与的可怕的攻击，”前司法部副部长唐纳德·艾耶尔说，他在乔治·布什政府的第一个司法部长任期内与巴尔一起工作，但后来成为他最直言不讳的批评者之一。"但他所做的一切都将成为司法部长不当行为的纪念碑."
在现任和前任联邦检察官、民主党人和活动家团体的批评和要求他辞职或弹劾的呼声中，巴尔仍然目中无人，继续推进他长期以来对巩固总统权力的信念。
对于许多保守派和巴尔支持的“单一行政”法律理论的支持者来说，人们将更多地记住巴尔的工作，因为他控制了他们认为不受当选者问责的联邦调查局和DOJ，而不是他被批评者宣传为政治驱动的任何更具争议性的决定。
“当然，他所做的事情极具争议性，但我认为当历史回顾时，他们会看到他上台——与指控相反，不是因为他是唐纳德·特朗普的亲信，”约翰·柳(John Yoo)说，他是伯克利的法学教授，曾在乔治·w·布什总统时期担任副助理司法部长。“但我认为，他的到来在某种程度上恢复了政治任命官员对司法部的那种控制。”
曾被认为是司法部长相对无争议的替代者杰夫·赛辛斯后来，巴尔在该部门的盟友中赢得了“水牛城”的绰号，因为他巩固了自己作为特朗普总统任期内最具分裂性和打破常规的人物之一的遗产。
作为对DOJ的回报，承诺保持“独立”
巴尔在2019年2月获得参议院批准之际，该部门已经受到特朗普总统的动荡和反复攻击的困扰，人们猜测特朗普是否会在俄罗斯调查完成前解雇前特别顾问罗伯特·穆勒。
chip somodeilla/Getty Images，FILE
司法部长提名人威廉·巴尔在确认听证会作证前宣誓就职
虽然巴尔被提名的消息最初让几位温和的民主党参议员松了一口气，但很快就透露出，几个月前，他写了一份未经请求的19页备忘录，寄给司法部领导层，在那里，他对穆勒对特朗普总统可能妨碍司法公正的调查提出了质疑。
巴尔辩称，这份备忘录“完全正确”，并表示它不是基于对穆勒调查的任何内部了解——而民主党人辩称，这显然是为了引起与特朗普总统关系密切的律师的注意，特朗普总统当时正积极攻击塞申斯拒绝干预穆勒的工作。
在受到抨击时，巴尔向参议员承诺，如果没有正当理由，他不会解雇穆勒，同时同意委员会中几名共和党人表达的关切，即应进一步审查参与特朗普竞选调查的联邦调查局特工的不当行为报告。他将穆勒描述为“好朋友”，并表示他将尽可能多地分享穆勒的最终报告“符合规定和法律”。
巴尔在担任GTE公司及其继任者威瑞森公司的总法律顾问时，已经成为政府以外的千万富翁，他利用这次听证会解释了他在如此动荡的时刻重返政府工作的决定。
巴尔说:“我最终决定，如果这个职位提供给我，我会接受这个职位的原因之一是，我觉得我有能力独立。”“我觉得我在生活中处于一个位置，在这个位置上，我可以做正确的事情，而不是真的关心后果，因为我不在乎后果——我可以真正独立。”
然而，在去年夏天的一次播客采访中，巴尔对接受这个职位给出了明显不同的解释。
巴尔说:“最终，我看到该部门被用作我们系统中的政治武器。”“这种‘抵制’一位正式当选的美国总统并利用一切手段来削弱他的政府的想法是灾难性的，我当时认为他需要一位司法部长，我同意这样做。”
然而，在执政近两年后，巴尔没有透露任何证据表明针对特朗普或其政府的如此大的阴谋。
穆勒报告
也许在巴尔的任期内，没有其他事件比他最终处理穆勒的最终报告以及他对特朗普总统在任期间的行为做出谴责性调查结果的方式受到更严厉的审查或审视。
2019年3月22日，巴尔在给国会的一封信中写道，穆勒的调查已经完成，他预计最早可以在周末就他的基本结论向立法者提出建议。在近两年的调查过程中，穆勒的团队起诉了30多名个人和三家俄罗斯企业，罪名从计算机黑客到阴谋和金融犯罪不等。
两天后，巴尔发布了一封现已臭名昭著的两页信，概述了他所描述的穆勒报告的“主要结论”。巴尔特别指出穆勒的声明，即调查人员“没有确定特朗普竞选团队的成员在俄罗斯政府的选举干预活动中与俄罗斯政府合谋或协调”，并指出穆勒选择不以这样或那样的方式确定特朗普在阻挠调查的努力中是否犯有妨碍司法公正的行为。相反，巴尔说，他和副总检察长罗德·罗森斯坦都得出结论，穆勒没有发现足以指控特朗普犯罪的证据。
这封信导致特朗普立即宣布他被“完全无罪释放”，直接与穆勒报告中的一句关键台词相矛盾，该句话表示，尽管它“没有得出总统犯了罪的结论，但也没有证明他无罪”。
巴尔提供的总结激怒了穆勒团队的成员，他们认为这有助于淡化他们在调查中得出的一些对特朗普有利的更具毁灭性的结论。不久后，穆勒本人给巴尔写了一封非同寻常的信，他在信中说，他的总结“没有完全抓住团队工作的背景、性质和实质”。
完整报告的修订版要到4月18日才会发布，在一次新闻发布会上，巴尔引发了更大的争议，因为他试图就特朗普为什么采取穆勒描述的一些有争议的行动提供自己的定性。
通过接入点实现芯片共享/池
司法部长威廉·巴尔出现在众议院司法委员会听证会上
巴尔说:“正如特别顾问的报告所承认的那样，有大量证据表明，总统对一种真诚的信念感到沮丧和愤怒，这种信念认为调查正在破坏他的总统任期，这种信念是由他的政治对手推动的，并受到非法泄密的推动。”
巴尔后来否认了关于他试图最小化穆勒的发现以在政治上帮助特朗普的指控，并在参议院关于该报告的听证会上表示，他发现穆勒的信“有点流鼻涕”。
柳认为对巴尔的批评是“不公平的”，因为他没有义务首先发布修订后的报告。
"谁在乎比尔·巴尔对报告说了些什么?"柳说。“报告建议不起诉，然后报告在第二卷中明确试图说，如果有人应该通过弹劾权来解决这个问题，那就是国会，所以巴尔做的最重要的事情是同意允许报告公开发表。”
柳传志过去曾因在乔治·沃克·布什政府期间在DOJ法律顾问办公室任职期间提出的法律意见而受到批评，包括为加强对反恐战争中抓获的被拘留者的审讯进行法律辩护，以及阐述对行政权力的广泛解释的其他意见。
尽管新的民主党众议院多数派将穆勒的阻挠调查结果视为弹劾特朗普的明确路线图，但巴尔言论的政治影响以及他后来对他们要求解密报告某些方面和穆勒基础工作产品的抵制被证明是有效的障碍。
7月25日，在穆勒出现在国会面前为他的报告作证的第二天，特朗普打电话给乌克兰总统沃洛季米尔·泽伦斯基，讨论他所说的穆勒“非常糟糕的表现”，并说他将要求司法部长巴尔和他的私人律师鲁迪·朱利安尼与泽伦斯基联系，调查前副总统乔·拜登和他的儿子亨特。
巴尔否认听说过特朗普的建议，也没有以任何方式对其采取行动。一份情报界告密者的投诉概述了电话中的细节，导致众议院民主党人弹劾特朗普滥用权力和阻挠国会——而许多民主党人公开发泄对穆勒的调查结果没有列入弹劾条款的失望。
调查调查员
尽管巴尔正在抵御有关他更像特朗普的私人律师而不是国家最高执法官员的指控，但他正处于特朗普及其盟友鼓励的另一项努力的阵痛之中，即调查参与启动俄罗斯调查的官员的行为。
穆勒报告发布一个月后，巴尔责成康涅狄格州的美国司法部长约翰·杜伦(John Durham)调查联邦调查局2016年最初的调查，该调查被称为“交叉火力飓风”。几个月后，该部门表示，杜伦的调查已经成为一项刑事调查。
DOJ监察长迈克尔·霍罗威兹对交叉火力飓风进行了单独的广泛调查，发现调查是在适当的原因下启动的，同时概述了对联邦调查局特工行为的谴责性调查结果，这些特工寻求法院授权对特朗普的一名前竞选助手进行监视。然而，巴尔和达勒姆不久后发表了一份联合声明，与霍洛维茨的发现相矛盾，霍洛维茨认为调查是正确的，并表示他们的调查仍在进行中。
Win McNamee/Getty Images，FILE
唐纳德·特朗普总统在司法部长威廉·巴尔的陪同下抵达新闻发布室
在采访和公开声明中，巴尔一再表示，杜伦的调查只会进一步增强他的信念，即特朗普和他的许多同伙是联邦调查局(FBI)和司法部(Justice Department)出于政治动机的官员发起的政治迫害的受害者。然而，尚不清楚达勒姆在多大程度上发现了实际违反法律的证据。
迄今为止，他的办公室只退回了一份对一名中层前联邦调查局律师的起诉书。这名律师在8月份承认修改了一份文件，该文件是该局用于获得法院批准对特朗普的前竞选助手卡特·佩吉进行监视的。
在总统选举前的几周，特朗普总统公开呼吁巴尔公布杜伦的调查结果，并宣布对他的政治对手的指控。
此前，巴尔在2月份接受美国广播公司新闻采访时明确表示，他认为司法部长不应应总统的要求采取此类行动。
巴尔说:“如果他说，你知道，去调查某人，因为——你觉得这是因为他们是政治对手，那么司法部长不应该执行，不会执行。”
相反，巴尔悄悄通知共和党议员，预计选举前杜伦不会采取进一步行动。
最近采访然而，巴尔向美联社透露，他在10月份任命达勒姆为特别顾问，他说这是为了给达勒姆提供一层保护，这样他的团队就可以继续工作，而不管选举结果如何。
巴尔说，由于选举的敏感性，他选择不通知议员们这一任命，尽管几位民主党议员已经对巴尔的动机提出了异议，并公开敦促拜登在就职时解除杜伦的职务。
这一任命可能会成为拜登和他最终选择的司法部长的一个重大政治难题。根据特别顾问法，只有在他们有正当理由的情况下，司法部长才有权解雇杜伦。
巴尔插手特朗普的盟友
尽管特朗普最近几个月对巴尔越来越失望，因为他拒绝按照特朗普的要求采取行动，制造一个他可以在总统选举中对他的对手使用的政治炸弹，但这反映了到目前为止巴尔任期的一个特点——他愿意反复干预总统直接关心的问题。
今年2月，巴尔否决了联邦检察官对特朗普盟友、自称“肮脏骗子”的罗杰·斯通的量刑建议，就在几个小时前，特朗普在推特上发布了关于此案的消息，称“不能允许这种误判!”
斯通被判向国会撒谎、篡改证人和妨碍司法公正，检察官建议他根据DOJ的量刑指南服刑7至9年。在巴尔干预后不久，四名检察官都辞职以示抗议——其中一名完全从司法部辞职。
独家报道采访在接受美国广播公司新闻采访时，巴尔罕见地与特朗普总统决裂，试图平息围绕他的决定的政治风暴，他告诉美国广播公司首席大法官记者皮埃尔·托马斯(Pierre Thomas)，特朗普“从未要求我在刑事案件中做任何事情”，他的推文“使我无法完成工作”。
与此同时，巴尔将参与另一个涉及总统盟友、前国家安全顾问迈克尔·弗林的案件。
弗林已经在法庭上两次认罪，承认在2017年总统换届期间向联邦调查局(FBI)隐瞒了他与俄罗斯大使的联系，但今年早些时候，在聘请律师西德尼·鲍威尔(Sidney Powell)后，他撤回了认罪，称最初调查他的联邦调查局(FBI)特工普遍存在不当行为。
巴尔后来聘请美国律师杰弗里·詹森(Jeffrey Jensen)审查弗林案件的相关情况，并于5月做出了撤销对弗林指控的特别决定。巴尔说，詹森在审查过程中发现的材料使他相信弗林对联邦调查局的谎言与任何合法的调查都无关。
在采访中被问及他是否在执行总统的命令时，巴尔回答说:“没有。”
“我在执行法律的命令。在我看来，我是在履行法律赋予我的职责，”巴尔说。
但监督弗林案件的联邦法官埃米特·沙利文对这一举措表示怀疑。沙利文任命了一名外部的前法官约翰·格里森(John Gleeson)来反对司法部的驳回动议，并权衡弗林是否可能通过推翻他先前的认罪而犯下伪证罪。
格里森在一份文件中抨击了司法部，称“有明确的证据表明(他们的)动议反映了一种腐败和出于政治动机的偏袒，不值得我们的司法系统。”
11月25日，特朗普总统给予弗林完全赦免时，沙利文仍在考虑是接受司法部的动议，还是继续对弗林判刑。在驳回该案的裁决中，沙利文明确表示，他高度怀疑DOJ的动机，并表示弗林被赦免并不意味着他是“无辜的”
巴尔在这些案件中的行为给许多联邦检察官敲响了警钟，包括菲利普·哈尔彭，他是司法部36年的老兵，曾担任美国助理检察官，监督对前众议员邓肯·亨特的起诉。亨特是特朗普总统的早期支持者，特朗普总统因共谋指控被定罪并被判处11个月监禁——特朗普公开攻击DOJ对他提起诉讼。
哈尔彭在电话采访中说，基于巴尔的行动，他选择推迟退休，以确保不会有类似的行动破坏他的团队对亨特的起诉。离开办公室后，他写了一篇尖锐的社论，公开反对巴尔。
“司法部长能否就一个或多个刑事案件发表意见?哈尔彭说:“嗯，是的，我认为只要是为了正确的原因，以正确的方式，这是可以做到的。“该部门的人在谴责什么，促使我写这篇社论的是这样一个事实，即他出于明显虚假的原因，在个别案件上有选择地这样做。”
压入采访今年6月，NPR就他是否能举出一个他“如此戏剧性地”介入的案例，其中一名涉案人员与总统无关，巴尔无法举出具体的例子。
巴尔说:“不用思索，我敢肯定，自从我来到这里，我已经做过很多这样的事情了。”。
DOJ瞄准了特朗普的批评者
当选总统拜登1月20日就职时，他在司法部任命的领导人将负责决定是否推进针对直言不讳批评特朗普总统的几起案件。
联邦检察官正在对前国家安全顾问约翰博尔顿(John Bolton)提起民事诉讼，称他在发布回忆录《发生的房间》之前没有完成出版前审查过程，违反了保密协议。博尔顿因是否违反《间谍法》非法处理机密信息而受到刑事调查。
博尔顿否认他的书包含机密信息，并指责DOJ为特朗普总统履行政治使命，特朗普总统公开为他们针对博尔顿的努力欢呼。
巴尔否认该部门提起诉讼有任何政治动机。
如果此案继续下去，可能会给波顿带来真正的法律麻烦。一名地区法官最近在他的民事案件中表示，他同意政府的说法，即这本书包含高度机密的信息，此前情报官员在私下向他介绍了他们认为可能损害美国国家安全的部分。
去年10月，美国司法部(Justice Department)对第一夫人梅兰妮·特朗普的前高级助手斯蒂芬妮·温斯顿·沃科夫(Stephanie Winston-Wolkoff)提起了民事诉讼。沃科夫发布了一本书，讲述了她与她和其他白宫官员的私人谈话细节。
该部门表示，温斯顿·沃尔科夫违反了她在东翼开始任职时签署的保密协议，并表示将寻求没收她可能从出版该书中获得的任何利润。尽管DOJ在过去的几届政府中对那些被发现违反他们在进入政府时签署的保密协议的个人提起过诉讼，但沃尔科夫的诉讼令许多法律专家感到困惑，因为这种案件通常只涉及据称的机密信息披露。
然而，对沃尔科夫的诉讼并没有指控她披露了任何机密材料，而是引用了她公布的关于第一夫人办公室人事决定的细节、关于“做最好的”倡议的信息以及她与总统的对话。
在另一项有争议的努力中，司法部在10月份遭到一名联邦法官的拒绝，当时司法部试图以特朗普取代自己，成为专栏作家E. Jean Carroll提起的诽谤诉讼的被告，他指控特朗普在20世纪90年代中期强奸了她。
DOJ表示，特朗普以官方身份对卡罗尔的指控进行了所谓的诽谤性否认，这一辩护遭到了地区法官刘易斯·卡普兰的质疑。
“美国总统不是相关法规意义上的‘政府雇员’”，卡普兰法官在上月的裁决中写道。“即使他是这样的‘雇员’，特朗普总统涉嫌诽谤卡罗尔女士的言论也不在他的工作范围内。”
司法部试图对卡普兰的裁决提出上诉，巴尔此前为DOJ干预此案的决定辩护，称其为“法律的正常适用”
“法律是明确的，”巴尔在芝加哥的新闻发布会上说。“正在发生的小风波很大程度上是因为我们所处的怪异政治环境。”
白宫施压运动
尽管一连串的行动使他成为特朗普总统最青睐的内阁成员之一，但在2020年大选前的几个月里，巴尔与特朗普的关系恶化了，因为他无视总统公开请求宣布调查，特朗普希望利用调查为自己谋取政治利益。
“比尔·巴尔可以被认为是我国历史上最伟大的司法部长，也可以被认为是一个普通人，”特朗普在8月份对福克斯商业频道主持人玛利亚·巴蒂罗姆说采访。“我们拭目以待。”
相反，巴尔保持沉默，直到选举后近一个月接受美联社采访时才发表公开言论。
巴尔在采访中表示，该部门没有发现可能推翻选举结果的广泛欺诈行为。随后，他访问了白宫，并在白宫与特朗普举行了消息人士所说的“紧张”会议。
两天后，在椭圆形办公室与记者的交流中，特朗普拒绝透露他是否继续对巴尔有信心。
特朗普说:“从现在起的几周内问我这个问题。”。
事实上，最近几周，有消息透露，巴尔故意隐瞒了至少两件事，这些事很可能被特朗普及其盟友用作攻击拜登候选人的弹药。
拜登过渡委员会12月9日的一份声明显示，拜登的儿子亨特正因潜在的税收犯罪接受特拉华州美国检察官办公室的积极调查——一名消息人士告诉美国广播公司新闻，这项调查自2018年以来一直在进行。另外，巴尔透露他已任命杜伦为特别顾问，正值特朗普在采访中公开发泄杜伦在选举前没有采取重大行动。
“即使他想恢复对联邦执法的控制，在‘小p’政治意义上，他仍然想让政府远离党派政治，”柳说。
一旦当选总统拜登就职，巴尔赋予司法部政治任命官员权力的努力是否会产生持久影响仍有待观察。
拜登最近表示，他的政府的一个关键优先事项将是在司法部和白宫之间建立明确的屏障，巴尔的批评者认为，在他的任期内，这一屏障实际上已经消除。
拜登在最近接受CNN采访时说:“我不会告诉他们什么该做什么不该做。”“我不会说去起诉‘甲、乙或丙’——我不会告诉他们。那不是角色，那不是我的司法部，那是人民司法部。”
接受美国广播公司新闻采访的前官员表示，这种“恢复正常”的方法使得拜登不可避免地选择谁作为他的司法部长变得更加重要，包括前副司法部长萨利·耶茨和前参议员道格·琼斯·达拉。据信目前在他的短名单上名列前茅。
“实际上需要做的不是改变历史上的做事方式，”艾耶尔说。“这是为了重申历史上做事的方式。这只是巴尔任期两年的一个插曲，在这两年里，许多这些规范被打破和忽视。
Barr departing Justice Department following tenure packed with controversy
Attorney General William Barr will resign from the Justice Department on Dec. 23, bringing a close to one of the most controversial tenures for an attorney general in modern history and after months of growing tension in his now-soured relationship with President Donald Trump. Trump had grown incensed over Barr's refusal to announce investigations into Trump's political opponents as well as baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
For more than a year and a half since the start of his second tenure as the nation’s attorney general, Barr has drawn fire over his efforts to undermine the investigation into Russia's efforts to interfere in the 2016 election and his repeated interventions in matters of direct interest to Trump.
Prior to his relationship with Trump cooling, Barr had proven to be one of the president's most reliable defenders.
In his resignation letter he hand-delivered to Trump at the White House on Monday, Barr made no mention of the tensions that developed with Trump, and instead heaped praise upon the president who had for weeks publicly vented his frustrations with Barr.
"I am proud to have played a role in the many successes and unprecedented achievements you have delivered for the American people," Barr wrote. "Your record is all the more historic because you accomplished it in the face of relentless, implacable resistance."
In interviews, Barr would often echo Trump's unfounded claims that a cabal of corrupt Obama administration officials conspired to overturn his election.
Over the summer, Barr dispatched federal law enforcement officers across the country as Trump publicly called for police to forcefully crack down on rioters damaging property and causing violence following the death of George Floyd -- even ordering the dispersal of a crowd of peaceful protesters gathered in front of the White House that cleared the way for Trump to stage a photo op at a nearby church.
And before his most recent statements confirming the department had uncovered no widespread fraud that could overturn the results of the 2020 election, during the COVID-19 pandemic Barr was among those repeatedly pushing conspiracies about foreign countries being able to mail in millions of ballots into the U.S.
"Good for him for finally stopping the godawful onslaught that he engaged in," said former deputy attorney general Donald Ayer, who served alongside Barr, during the attorney general’s first tenure in the George H.W. Bush administration but has since become one of his most vocal critics. "But everything he did, will stand as a monument to inappropriate behavior by an attorney general."
Amid criticism and calls for his resignation or impeachment from current and former federal prosecutors, Democrats and activist groups, Barr remained defiant as he charged forward with his long-held belief in shoring up power in the presidency.
For many conservatives and proponents of the 'unitary executive' legal theory to which Barr subscribes, Barr will be remembered more for his work to rein in what they believe was an FBI and DOJ untethered from accountability by those elected to office, than any of his more controversial decisions hyped by critics as politically driven.
"Of course the things he did were extremely controversial but I think when history looks back they're going to see that he came into the office -- contrary to accusations, not because he was Donald Trump's wing-man," said John Yoo, a law professor at Berkeley who previously served as deputy assistant attorney general under President George W. Bush. "But I think he came in to sort of restore that kind of control by politically-appointed officials over the Justice Department."
Once cast as a relatively non-controversial replacement for attorney generalJeff Sessions, Barr later earned the nickname 'Buffalo' among allies in the department as he cemented a legacy as one of the most divisive and norm-breaking figures of the Trump presidency.
In return to DOJ, a commitment to remain 'independent'
Barr's Senate confirmation in February 2019 came as the department was already beset by turmoil and repeated attacks from President Trump, amid speculation over whether Trump might move to fire former special counsel Robert Mueller before the completion of the Russia investigation.
While news of Barr's nomination was initially met with some relief by several moderate Democratic senators, it was soon revealed that he had authored an unsolicited 19-page memo sent to Justice Department leadership several months earlier, where he cast doubt on the basis of Mueller's probe of President Trump for potential obstruction of justice.
Barr defended the memo as "entirely proper" and said it was not based on any internal knowledge of Mueller's investigation -- while Democrats argued it was clearly intended to catch the attention of lawyers close to President Trump, who at the time was actively attacking Sessions for declining to intervene against Mueller's work.
Under fire, Barr committed to senators that he would not move to fire Mueller without proper cause, while at the same time agreeing with concerns expressed by several Republicans on the committee that reports of misconduct by FBI agents involved in the investigation of Trump's campaign should be further examined. He described Mueller as a "good friend," and said he would share as much as possible of Mueller's final report "consistent with regulations and the law."
Barr, who had become a multi-millionaire outside government in his position as general counsel for GTE corporation and its successor company Verizon, used the hearing to explain his decision to return to work in government at such a tumultuous moment.
"One of the reasons I ultimately decided that I would accept this position if it was offered to me was because I was -- I feel that I am in a position to be independent," Barr said. "I feel I am in a position in life where I can do the right thing and not really care about the consequences in the sense that I do not -- I can truly be independent."
In a podcast interview this past summer, however, Barr gave a noticeably different explanation for accepting the position.
"At the end of the day, I saw the department being used as a political weapon in our system," Barr said. "This idea of 'resisting' a duly-elected President of the United States and using every device to impair his administration was disastrous and I thought that he needed an attorney general at that point, and I agreed to do it."
After nearly two years in office, however, Barr revealed no evidence indicating such a grand conspiracy against Trump or his administration.
The Mueller Report
Perhaps no other episode of Barr's tenure has been more harshly examined or scrutinized than his eventual handling of Mueller's final report and the manner in which he cast its damning findings about President Trump's conduct while in office.
On March 22, 2019, Barr wrote in a letter to Congress that Mueller's investigation had been completed and that he anticipated being able to advise lawmakers of his underlying conclusions as early as the weekend. Over the course of his nearly two-year probe, Mueller's team indicted more than 30 individuals and three Russian businesses on charges ranging from computer hacking to conspiracy and financial crimes.
Two days later, Barr released a now-infamous two-page letter outlining what he described as the "principal conclusions" from Mueller's report. Barr singled out Mueller's statement that investigators "did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities" and noted that Mueller chose not to determine one way or another whether Trump committed obstruction of justice in his efforts to thwart the investigation. Instead, Barr said both he and deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein had come to the conclusion that Mueller did not uncover evidence sufficient to charge Trump with a crime.
The letter led Trump to immediately declare he had been "fully exonerated," directly contradicting a key line in Mueller's report that stated that while it "did not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."
The summary offered by Barr outraged members of Mueller's team, who believed it served to water down some of the more damning conclusions they reached in the investigation at Trump's political benefit. Soon after Mueller himself penned an extraordinary letter to Barr where he said his summary "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance" of his team's work.
A redacted version of the full report would not be released until April 18, and in a news conference Barr generated even more controversy as he sought to offer his own characterization of why Trump took some of the controversial actions described by Mueller.
"As the Special Counsel’s report acknowledges, there is substantial evidence to show that the President was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks," Barr said.
Barr later rejected accusations that he sought to minimize Mueller's findings to help Trump politically, and in a Senate hearing on the report said he found Mueller's letter to be "a bit snitty."
Yoo argued the criticism of Barr was "unfair" because he had no obligation to release the redacted report in the first place.
"Who cares what Bill Barr said about the report?" Yoo said. "The report recommended no prosecutions and then the report clearly tried to say in the second volume if anyone's supposed to take care of this it's Congress through their impeachment power so the most important thing Barr did was to agree to allow the report to come out in public."
Yoo has faced criticism in the past for his legal opinions crafted while he served in DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel during the George W. Bush Administration -- including the legal defense for enhanced interrogation of detainees captured in the War on Terror and other opinions that spelled out broad interpretations of executive powers.
While much of the new Democratic House majority viewed Mueller's obstruction findings as a clear roadmap to impeaching Trump, the political impact of Barr's statements as well as his later resistance to their demands to declassify certain aspects of the report and Mueller's underlying work products proved to be effective roadblocks.
On July 25, the day after Mueller appeared in front of Congress to testify on his report, Trump phoned Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky where he discussed what he described as Mueller's "very poor performance," and said he would ask Attorney General Barr and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to get in touch with Zelensky about investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Barr denied ever hearing about or acting in any way on Trump's suggestion. An intelligence community whistleblower complaint outlining details from the call led House Democrats to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress -- while many Democrats publicly vented frustrations that Mueller's findings were not included in the articles of impeachment.
Investigating the investigators
Even as he was fending off accusations of acting more like a personal attorney for Trump than the nation's top law enforcement official, Barr was in the throes of a separate effort encouraged by Trump and his allies -- investigating the conduct of officials involved in starting the Russia investigation.
A month after the Mueller report's release, Barr tasked U.S. Attorney John Durham of Connecticut with investigating the FBI's original 2016 investigation, dubbed 'Crossfire Hurricane.' Months later, the department said that Durham's investigation had become a criminal inquiry.
A separate extensive investigation into Crossfire Hurricane by the DOJ's inspector general Michael Horowitz found that the investigated was launched with proper cause, while at the same time outlining damning findings about the conduct of FBI agents who had sought court-authorized surveillance of a former Trump campaign aide. Barr and Durham soon after released a joint statement, however, splitting with Horowitz's finding that the probe was properly predicated and stated their investigation was still ongoing.
In interviews and public statements, Barr has repeatedly suggested Durham's investigation has only further bolstered his belief that Trump and many of his associates were victims of a witch hunt launched by politically motivated officials in the FBI and Justice Department. It's still unclear though, to what extent Durham has uncovered evidence of actual material violations of the law.
To date, his office has only returned one indictment against a mid-level former FBI lawyer, who pleaded guilty in August to altering a document the bureau used in getting court approval for the surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
In the weeks leading up to the presidential election, President Trump publicly called for Barr to release Durham's findings and announce charges against his political rivals.
Previously, Barr had made clear in an interview with ABC News in February that he believed no attorney general should take such action at the request of the president.
"If he were to say, you know, go investigate somebody because - and you sense it's because they're a political opponent, then an attorney general shouldn't carry that out, wouldn't carry that out," Barr said.
Instead, Barr quietly informed Republican lawmakers that no further action from Durham was expected prior to the election.
In a recentinterviewwith the Associated Press, however, Barr revealed that in October he had appointed Durham as a special counsel -- which he said was intended to provide Durham with a layer of protection so his team could continue their work irrespective of the results of the election.
Barr said he had opted not to inform lawmakers of the appointment due to sensitivities around the election, though several Democratic lawmakers have already cried foul about Barr's motivations and publicly urged Biden to dismiss Durham upon taking office.
The appointment could prove to be a significant political headache for Biden and his eventual pick for attorney general, who, under the special counsel statute, would only have the authority to fire Durham if they have proper cause.
Barr stepped in for Trump allies
Though Trump in recent months grew increasingly frustrated with Barr as he refused to act on Trump's demands to manufacture a political bombshell that he could wield against his opponents in the presidential election, it reflected what had, up to that point, become a feature of Barr's tenure -- his willingness to repeatedly intervene in matters of direct interest to the president.
Barr's move in February to overrule the sentencing recommendation by federal prosecutors for Trump ally and self-professed 'dirty trickster' Roger Stone, came just hours after Trump had tweeted about the case saying, "cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!"
Stone was convicted of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstruction of justice, and prosecutors had recommended he serve seven to nine years in jail in line with DOJ's sentencing guidelines. Soon after Barr's intervention, all four prosecutors quit the case in protest -- with one resigning from the department altogether.
In an exclusiveinterviewwith ABC News, Barr sought to tamp down the political firestorm over his decision by making a rare break with President Trump, telling ABC's Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas that Trump "never asked me to do anything in a criminal case" and that his tweets "make it impossible for me to do my job."
At the same time, Barr was set to involve himself in yet another case involving an ally of the president, former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Flynn had already pleaded guilty twice in court to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador during the 2017 presidential transition, but early in the year after hiring lawyer Sidney Powell he moved to withdraw his plea -- alleging widespread misconduct among the FBI agents who originally investigated him.
Barr later tapped U.S. attorney Jeffrey Jensen to review the circumstances surrounding Flynn's case, and in May made the extraordinary decision to move for the dismissal of the charge against Flynn. Barr said materials Jensen uncovered in the course of his review led him to believe that Flynn's lies to the FBI were not relevant to any legitimate investigation.
Asked in an interview whether he was doing the president's bidding, Barr answered, "No."
"I'm doing the law's bidding. I'm doing my duty under the law, as I see it," Barr said.
But the move was met with some skepticism from the federal judge overseeing Flynn's case, Emmet Sullivan. Sullivan appointed an outside former judge John Gleeson to argue against the department's motion to dismiss, and also to weigh whether Flynn may have committed perjury by reversing his earlier guilty plea.
Gleeson blasted the department in a filing, arguing there was "clear evidence that [their] motion reflects a corrupt and politically motivated favor unworthy of our justice system."
Sullivan was still weighing whether to accept the department's motion or move forward with sentencing Flynn when President Trump granted Flynn a full pardon on Nov. 25. In a ruling dismissing the case, Sullivan made clear he was highly suspect of the DOJ's motives and stated that just because Flynn was pardoned didn't mean he was "innocent."
Barr's actions in those cases raised alarm bells for many federal prosecutors, including Phillip Halpern, a 36-year veteran of the department who served as an assistant U.S. attorney overseeing the prosecution of former Rep. Duncan Hunter. Hunter was an early supporter of President Trump who was convicted on conspiracy charges and sentenced to 11 months in prison -- Trump publicly attacked the DOJ for bringing the case against him.
Halpern said in a phone interview that based on Barr's actions he opted to delay his retirement to ensure that there wouldn't be a similar action to undermine his team's prosecution of Hunter. Upon leaving the office he penned a scathing editorial speaking out against Barr.
"Can an Attorney General weigh in on an individual criminal case or individual criminal cases? Well, yeah, I think that can be done as long as it's being done for the right reasons in the right way," Halpern said. "What the people in the department were decrying and what prompted my editorial was the fact that he was doing it selectively on individual cases for transparently false reasons."
Pressed in aninterviewwith NPR in June over whether he could name a case where he intervened "so dramatically" in which a person involved was not connected to the president, Barr couldn't name a specific instance.
"Off the top of my head, I'm sure there were a number of cases since I've been here that I've done that," Barr said.
DOJ targeted Trump critics
When President-elect Biden takes office on Jan. 20, the leaders he installs at the Justice Department will be tasked with deciding whether to move forward with several cases that were launched against outspoken critics of President Trump.
Federal prosecutors are engaged in a civil suit against former national security adviser John Bolton, alleging he violated a non-disclosure agreement when he didn't complete the pre-publication review process before releasing his memoir, 'The Room Where It Happened.' Bolton is separately under criminal investigation over whether he illegally mishandled classified information in violation of the Espionage Act.
Bolton has disputed that his book contains classified information and accused the DOJ of carrying out a political errand for President Trump, who has publicly cheered on their efforts targeting Bolton.
Barr has denied the department had any political motive in bringing the lawsuit.
Should the case move forward, it could spell real legal trouble for Bolton. A district judge in his civil case recently said he agreed with the government's argument that the book contained highly classified information after intelligence officials briefed him in a private setting on portions they had identified as potentially damaging to U.S. national security.
In a similar move in October, the Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against Stephanie Winston-Wolkoff, a former top aide to first lady Melania Trump who released a tell-all book that included details of her private conversations with her and other White House officials.
The department said Winston-Wolkoff breached a non-disclosure agreement signed upon starting her role in the East Wing and indicated it will seek to seize any profits she may have received from publishing the book. While the DOJ has in past administrations brought lawsuits against individuals found to have violated their non-disclosure agreements that they signed upon entering government -- the Wolkoff lawsuit puzzled many legal experts as such cases are typically only brought over alleged disclosures of classified information.
The lawsuit against Wolkoff, however, doesn't allege she disclosed any classified materials -- instead citing details she published about personnel decisions in the first lady's office, information on the "Be Best" initiative and conversations she had with the president.
In a separate controversial effort, the department was rebuffed by a federal judge in October when it sought to replace itself with Trump as a defendant in a defamation suit brought by columnist E. Jean Carroll, who has alleged Trump raped her in the mid-1990s.
The DOJ has said Trump made his allegedly defamatory denials of Carroll's accusation while acting in his official capacity, a defense met with skepticism from district judge Lewis Kaplan.
"The president of the United States is not an 'employee of the government' within the meaning of the relevant statutes," Judge Kaplan wrote in his ruling last month. "Even if he were such an 'employee,' President Trump's allegedly defamatory statements concerning Ms. Carroll would not have been within the scope of his employment."
The department has sought to appeal Kaplan's ruling, and Barr previously defended the DOJ's decision to intervene in the case -- describing it as “a normal application of the law."
"The law is clear,” Barr said in a Chicago press conference. "The little tempest that is going on is largely because of the bizarre political environment in which we live.”
White House pressure campaign
Despite a laundry list of actions that had landed him among President Trump's most favored Cabinet members, Barr's relationship with Trump deteriorated in the months leading up to the 2020 election as he ignored the president's public pleas to announce investigations that Trump hoped to use for his political benefit.
“Bill Barr can go down as the greatest attorney general in the history of our country, or he can go down as an average guy," Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo in an Augustinterview. "We’ll see what happens."
Barr instead kept quiet and made no public remarks until nearly a month after the election when he conducted an interview with the Associated Press.
In the interview Barr stated the department uncovered no widespread fraud that could overturn the results of the election. Afterwards he visited the White House and held what sources described as an "intense" meeting with Trump at the White House.
Two days later, in an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office, Trump declined to say whether he continued to have confidence in Barr.
"Ask me that in a number of weeks from now," Trump said.
In recent weeks, in fact, it was revealed Barr deliberately kept from making public at least two matters that would most certainly have been used by Trump and his allies as ammunition in their attacks against Biden's candidacy.
A statement from the Biden transition on Dec. 9 revealed that Biden's son Hunter is under active investigation by the U.S. attorney's office in Delaware for potential tax crimes -- an inquiry which a source told ABC News had been active since 2018. Separately, Barr's revelation that he had appointed Durham as a special counsel came as Trump had openly vented in an interview that Durham made no major moves prior to the election.
"Even though he wanted to restore control, in the 'little-p' political sense, of federal law enforcement, he still wanted to keep the government out of partisan politics," Yoo said.
Whether Barr's efforts to empower politically-appointed officials in the Justice Department will have any lasting impact once President-elect Biden takes office remains to be seen.
Biden has recently indicated a key priority for his administration will be establishing a clear barrier between the affairs of the Justice Department and the West Wing, which critics of Barr argue was virtually eliminated through the course of his tenure.
"I'm not going to be telling them what they have to do and don't have to do," Biden said in a recent interview with CNN. "I'm not going to be saying go prosecute 'A, B or C' -- I'm not going to be telling them. That's not the role, it's not my Justice Department, it's the people's Justice Department."
Former officials who spoke to ABC News argue that such a 'return-to-normalcy' approach makes it all the more important who Biden inevitably selects as his attorney general, with former deputy attorney general Sally Yates and former Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., believed to be currently at the top of his short list.
"What actually needs to be done is not changing the way things have historically been done," Ayer said. "It's to reaffirm the way things have historically been done. It's an interlude here of mostly just the two-year period of Barr's tenure where a lot of these norms have been fractured and ignored.
