Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grassoe from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: The Journey General William Barr is stepping down two weeks
Speaker 1: after saying in an interview that there was no evidence
Speaker 1: of significant voter fraud in the election. It's the culmination
Speaker 1: of an increasingly sour relationship with President Donald Trump. The
Speaker 1: Justice Department has been buffeted in recent years by Trump's
Speaker 1: criticism of it and attempts to politicize it. So who
Speaker 1: will Joe Biden pick as his attorney general? Joining me
Speaker 1: as former federal prosecutor Robert Mints a partner in McCarter
Speaker 1: In English? Bob, how much damage has been done to
Speaker 1: the Joice Department during the last four years, damage to
Speaker 1: its inner workings and the public's perception of its integrity
Speaker 1: and credibility. Almost from the outset of the Trump administration,
Speaker 1: there have been allegations that the President has attempted to
Speaker 1: exert political influence over decisions made by the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice and its Attorney General. Historically, the depart and of
Speaker 1: Justice acts independently of the president. Because the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice is often investigating individuals who may have some political
Speaker 1: connections to the President or to the president's political party.
Speaker 1: So it's important that those decisions are made by individuals
Speaker 1: who have no connection directly to the president, and there
Speaker 1: must be an appearance that the Department of Justice is
Speaker 1: making decisions solely on the basis of the merits of
Speaker 1: these cases and not for any other reasons. Many Attorney
Speaker 1: general's offices have been accused of being politicized, and it's
Speaker 1: certainly an element of politics and all this, but just
Speaker 1: how politicized has the Trump Justice Department been. Attorney General
Speaker 1: bar has been criticized for being overly political, and in
Speaker 1: the past, all Attorney generals are certainly the most recent
Speaker 1: ones have all been accused of at times making decisions
Speaker 1: that were more political than legal. But in this case,
Speaker 1: critics have said that Mr Trump made clear almost from
Speaker 1: the outset he viewed the Department of Justice and the
Speaker 1: FBI as organizations that should be acting in his best
Speaker 1: interests and not necessarily in the interests of the country.
Speaker 1: He repeatedly pressured the Attorney general, for example, to investigate
Speaker 1: Mr Biden, to investigate former President Barack Obama, to investigate
Speaker 1: former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, only to be frustrated
Speaker 1: when Attorney General Barr didn't comply, but there are instances
Speaker 1: that Mr Bard did succumb to the pressure that was
Speaker 1: being applied by Mr Trump. For example, Mr Bard did
Speaker 1: move to reduce the sentencing recommendation for the President's longtime
Speaker 1: friend and advisor, Roser Stone. He assisted the President, at
Speaker 1: least according to his critics, in overturning the guilty pleas
Speaker 1: of the President's former national security advisor at Michael T. Flynn.
Speaker 1: This was done over the objections of career prosecutors, some
Speaker 1: of whom even resigned in protest over this decision, and
Speaker 1: then Mr Trump ultimately went even further by commuting the
Speaker 1: sense of Mr Stone after he was convicted and sentenced
Speaker 1: to jail. More recently, it's interesting that the President has
Speaker 1: soured on Attorney General bar and Mr Trump had been
Speaker 1: calling the election a fraud and saying that mail in
Speaker 1: voting was not reliable, and yet there was nothing but
Speaker 1: silence out of the Departmative Justice until recently when Mr
Speaker 1: Barr came out and actually said that he saw no
Speaker 1: evidence of voting fraud. What kind of qualities and background
Speaker 1: should a new Attorney general have. The decision of who
Speaker 1: to appoint as Attorney General is one of the most
Speaker 1: consequential that any president makes in his or her cabinet.
Speaker 1: It's important because the attorney General has so much power
Speaker 1: over so many important decisions that affect the lives of Americans. Typically,
Speaker 1: the president will pick somebody who they know, who they trust,
Speaker 1: but it's also important that that person acts independently, and
Speaker 1: so there's the balancing act. Somebody who the president believes in,
Speaker 1: who the president believes has a good sound judge and
Speaker 1: will act in the best interests of the country. But
Speaker 1: also there has to be the perception that the attorney
Speaker 1: general is not so close to the president, that the
Speaker 1: attorney general is not acting in the best interests of
Speaker 1: the country and maybe shading decisions in a way that
Speaker 1: might be politically beneficial to the president. One of the
Speaker 1: people discussed as a possible candidate for attorney General is
Speaker 1: Sally Yates, the former Deputy Attorney General and the Obama administration.
Speaker 1: One of the top contenders is Sally Yate, who was
Speaker 1: fired by President Trump for refusing to defend his executive
Speaker 1: order banning entry to the United States for those from
Speaker 1: Muslim majority countries. She is one of the people who
Speaker 1: a lot of career prosecutors uh currently in the office
Speaker 1: and former federal prosecutors like because she knows the inner
Speaker 1: workings of the office, she'll hit the ground running. She's
Speaker 1: well versed in the big national security threats that are
Speaker 1: currently facing the country, and she also the strong civil
Speaker 1: rights record, which is something that is clearly going to
Speaker 1: be a top priority for the Biden administration. The main
Speaker 1: challenge in tackling these civil rights issues is going to
Speaker 1: be to find somebody who has credibility both in the
Speaker 1: civil rights community but also with police because ultimately, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, in order to achieve any
Speaker 1: progress in this area, you have to work with both
Speaker 1: civil rights advocates and also police officers who are on
Speaker 1: the front line in dealing with crime. So she's somebody
Speaker 1: who many people believe has those qualities and would make
Speaker 1: a good attorney general. Since civil rights, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: and racial inequality is so much in the forefront these days,
Speaker 1: is it important to have somewhat of color perhaps in
Speaker 1: the role of attorney general. Well, there are some people
Speaker 1: who believe that someone of color should be the attorney general.
Speaker 1: Daval Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts, is in the running,
Speaker 1: but doesn't seem to be a top contender at this point.
Speaker 1: President Biden seems to be looking to people that he
Speaker 1: knows and trust and has has some history with, and
Speaker 1: that may be why daval Patrick is not on the
Speaker 1: top of the list. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you want somebody who has the trust of the people
Speaker 1: who are going to be involved in these issues. Someone
Speaker 1: of color would certainly be sending a message to the public,
Speaker 1: to the country that the department is going to be
Speaker 1: run by somebody who is going to be sensitive to
Speaker 1: civil rights issues. But it's most important that the person
Speaker 1: has the trust of both sets of parties here, both
Speaker 1: the civil rights advocates and law enforcement, because that's the
Speaker 1: way progress is going to be made. Senator Doug Jones
Speaker 1: has been mentioned a great deal as a possibility. How
Speaker 1: do you see his chances? Doug Jones, the Senator from Alabama,
Speaker 1: is a former U S attorney. He won a special
Speaker 1: election in seventeen but was recently defeated for the United
Speaker 1: States Senate in Alabama, who is a deeply Republican state.
Speaker 1: But he's at the top of the list because he's
Speaker 1: known Joe Biden for forty years. He's also someone who
Speaker 1: has some credibility within the civil rights community because as
Speaker 1: the U. S. Attorney for the Northern District developed im
Speaker 1: he prosecuted to Ku Klux Klans members involved the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty three church bombings in Birmingham. And he also has
Speaker 1: the virtue of somebody who is most likely to receive
Speaker 1: Senate confirmation, having spent one term in the United States Senate.
Speaker 1: He reached across party lines and actually has some significant
Speaker 1: report from Republicans. So if President elect Biden is looking
Speaker 1: to pick somebody who is most easily going to be confirmed,
Speaker 1: Doug Jones maybe at the top of that list. The U. S.
Speaker 1: Attorney in Delaware has disclosed that there's an investigation into
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden for possible tax crimes. How much does that
Speaker 1: complicate Biden's selection of an attorney general. This certainly ratchets
Speaker 1: up the pressure on the appearance of somebody who was
Speaker 1: going to be impartial, who's going to be independent, and
Speaker 1: is going to have some distance from the White House.
Speaker 1: The fact that there is a current investigation into a
Speaker 1: member of the president his immediate family is not something
Speaker 1: that the country has never faced. For example, Jimmy Carter's brother,
Speaker 1: Billy Carter, was investigated for lobbying for the government of
Speaker 1: Libya while he Jimmy Carter was president. George Bush's son
Speaker 1: Neil Bush, was faulted by regulators in connection with the
Speaker 1: collapse of a savings and loan and President Bill Clinton
Speaker 1: ultimately partnered his own brother, Roger Clinton, for drug charges.
Speaker 1: So there is some history here for immediate family members
Speaker 1: of presidents being investigated while their family member is president
Speaker 1: of the United States. Mr. Trump's children have been caught
Speaker 1: up in multiple legal matters during his presidency. For example,
Speaker 1: during the investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, there was
Speaker 1: an allegation that Donald Trump Jr. Held a meeting with
Speaker 1: the Kremlin connected lawyer during the nineteen During the sixteen campaign,
Speaker 1: there was also an allegation regarding Jared Kushner, his son
Speaker 1: in law and senior advisor, who was stripped of his
Speaker 1: top secret security clearance. So there is this history here.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, what matters most is
Speaker 1: that there is a feeling that whoever is the Attorney general,
Speaker 1: and ultimately, however this matter is handled by the Attorney
Speaker 1: General's office, it is done fairly and partially and without
Speaker 1: political influence. So on one level. President elect Biden has
Speaker 1: already stated that one of his major missions with the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice is to restore integrity, to restore the
Speaker 1: morale of members of the Department of Justice, and to
Speaker 1: restore the public space that the Department of Justice is
Speaker 1: acting independently and is not simply an arm of the
Speaker 1: White House. But certainly the announcement of this investigation into
Speaker 1: his son's will put added pressure on anybody who is
Speaker 1: nominated for this position that during the confirmation process, we
Speaker 1: can expect that they will be asked questions about how
Speaker 1: they will handle this investigation going forward. Some people are
Speaker 1: suggesting that the new Attorney General appoint a special counsel
Speaker 1: to handle the Hunter Biden matter in order to cabin
Speaker 1: off this politically sensitive case. Are we appointing too many
Speaker 1: special councils? Should the Justice Department just be able to
Speaker 1: handle these kinds of cases. There's been a history of
Speaker 1: appointing special counsel in any case in which there is
Speaker 1: an allegation that there's a conflict of interests between the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice and the investigation, So it happens all
Speaker 1: the time. But there has been some concern that there
Speaker 1: have been too many special councils appointed, and that the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice ought to be able to handle politically
Speaker 1: sensitive investigations on their own through a number of means.
Speaker 1: For example, anybody who's involved in the case in some
Speaker 1: way re chooses them felt from that case, you can
Speaker 1: have career prosecutors who run these cases. There have been
Speaker 1: past examples where the U. S. Attorney from the prior
Speaker 1: administration is allowed to stay on into the next administration
Speaker 1: to complete that investigation. That's exactly what happened. For example,
Speaker 1: during the investigation into John Edwards. Eric Holder, who was
Speaker 1: then the Attorney General for Barack Obama, allowed the current U. S.
Speaker 1: Attorney in North Carolina who is investigating the John Edwards case,
Speaker 1: to stay on even though he was a Republican appointee,
Speaker 1: until he completed that investigation. So many people believe that
Speaker 1: there are many mechanisms in place that will allow the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice to handle any kind of political politically
Speaker 1: sensitive investigation without necessarily going so far as to appoint
Speaker 1: a special counsel. I was looking at the most simplistic terms,
Speaker 1: Is it basically Joe Biden just going back in time
Speaker 1: four years with the Justice Department, or does he need
Speaker 1: to do more to overcome what's happened in the last
Speaker 1: four years. Yeah, that's a great question. I think the
Speaker 1: answer is more has to be done because we're not
Speaker 1: now today where we were four years ago. There has
Speaker 1: been so much unprecedented criticism of both the career people
Speaker 1: within the Department of Justice career people at the FBI,
Speaker 1: that there's been a real erosion of confidence that the
Speaker 1: public has in these institutions. And it's really important for
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice to function well, for the FBI
Speaker 1: to function properly, for federal prosecutors to be able to
Speaker 1: take cases to trial, that people believe that they're acting
Speaker 1: in good faith. They may not be perfect, and that's
Speaker 1: not to say that prosecutors don't occasionally make mistakes. They do,
Speaker 1: but there really needs to be the belief that they're
Speaker 1: acting in the pursuit of justice and that they're not
Speaker 1: acting for some ulterior political motive. And so in order
Speaker 1: to restore that faith, I think the Department of Justice
Speaker 1: and whoever the next Attorney General will will be, will
Speaker 1: have to take extraordinary steps to try to bring people
Speaker 1: back to a place where they believe that the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice is fair, that those career people in the
Speaker 1: office are doing what's right for the country and that
Speaker 1: ultimately the goal here is to pursue justice and nothing
Speaker 1: less and nothing more. There are questions about how the
Speaker 1: new Department of Justice should handle investigating President Trump or
Speaker 1: his inner circle, and some people have said that Biden
Speaker 1: has no appetite for investigating Trump and bringing that into
Speaker 1: his administration, but others say that the Department has to
Speaker 1: pursue criminal cases without fear or favor. What's your take
Speaker 1: on that question. One of the most interesting challenges for
Speaker 1: the new Department of Justice will be the question of
Speaker 1: whether or not they will pursue any investigations into President
Speaker 1: Trump or his immediate family. There are those who say
Speaker 1: that nobody is above the law and that those investigations
Speaker 1: need to be impartially pursued. Whether there is anything ultimately
Speaker 1: to them or not, we just don't know at this point.
Speaker 1: But there are also others, including President LEC. Biden, who
Speaker 1: wants to turn the page on this and move forward.
Speaker 1: I think there are some who understand that any investigation
Speaker 1: into the Trump administration at this point will be so
Speaker 1: divisive and will further erode confidence that people have in
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice, and so that will be the
Speaker 1: ultimate question as they bounced decisions about whether to pursue
Speaker 1: those cases or whether to simply move on and bring
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice into the next phase where it's
Speaker 1: forward looking, trying to restore confidence, that is, pursuing cases
Speaker 1: for reasons of justice only. Thanks for being on the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law Show, Bob. That's former federal prosecutor Robert Mints,
Speaker 1: a partner McCarter and English Attorney General William Barr is
Speaker 1: stepping down with a little more than a month left
Speaker 1: and the Trump administration. Bar cross President Trump on two
Speaker 1: issues in recent weeks, an investigation into Joe Biden's son
Speaker 1: and Trump's unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in the election.
Speaker 1: My guess is Brad mass Apartment Mark Zaide bar was
Speaker 1: one of Trump's greatest allies until he wasn't Do we
Speaker 1: know the full story yet of what happened been to
Speaker 1: cause him to resign or might we not know for
Speaker 1: a while. I certainly think it could be some time
Speaker 1: until we get the full details about I think it's
Speaker 1: certainly possible that William Barr was frustrated for a while
Speaker 1: about the President's public remarks that were sort of disrupting
Speaker 1: and interfering in Justice Department investigations and operations. Saw that
Speaker 1: when the roger Stone matter came out and when the
Speaker 1: President was constantly tweeting about it and trying to publicly
Speaker 1: pressure the justicepartments to go easy on his former friend
Speaker 1: and ally roger Stone, and Bar went public about that
Speaker 1: about the frustrations, and we've seen that again going into
Speaker 1: the election and now in the aftermith with all the
Speaker 1: voter fraud conspiracies. That while William Barr certainly was an
Speaker 1: ideological ally the president, when it came to the power
Speaker 1: of the executive branch and it's sort of ability to
Speaker 1: inflate itself from outside scrutiny, there were limits to what
Speaker 1: even he was willing to do, especially when it came
Speaker 1: to the idea of trying to pursue some voter fraud
Speaker 1: prosecution when the evidence complete isn't there, and that obviously
Speaker 1: is what brought this to an end for him. What
Speaker 1: do you make of the toty ing in his resignation letter.
Speaker 1: I think that's certainly, you know, William Barr wanting to
Speaker 1: keep things civil and on, you know, a cooperative public
Speaker 1: faiths with the president. I mean, that's very much what
Speaker 1: people in this administration tend to do when they still
Speaker 1: have that is desire is to stay in Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: good graces. You you talk him up, you flatter him,
Speaker 1: you talk about how great he is, and how great
Speaker 1: everything he did was, and how everyone who went after
Speaker 1: him was the evil in facing it all off, you know, lies.
Speaker 1: So William Barr still wants to be able to give speeches,
Speaker 1: will write books, or hold any kind of events to
Speaker 1: you know, still have a career, and not that they
Speaker 1: hasn't had already a lustrous one, but to still be
Speaker 1: able to make money going forward the next few years.
Speaker 1: That he needed to stay in Donald Trump's good graces.
Speaker 1: And that's what that letter did. Besides of our statements
Speaker 1: to a p about the validity of the election, another
Speaker 1: thing at angered President Trump is that Barr didn't publicly
Speaker 1: announce the ongoing two year investigation into Hunter Biden before
Speaker 1: election day, and right now AP is reporting that Trump
Speaker 1: has already consulted on the matter with White House Chief
Speaker 1: of Staff Mark Meadows and White House counsel Pat Cipoloni
Speaker 1: to see whether or not he can put a special
Speaker 1: counsel in to investigate Hunter Biden. Yes, so, and again
Speaker 1: this was one of those things where William Barr's whole
Speaker 1: thing was about restoring the order and sort of the
Speaker 1: integrity of the Just Department. He felt that politics had
Speaker 1: become too imbued in it. The Bureau in particular with
Speaker 1: James Comeey and Andrew McCabe, whether not too or not,
Speaker 1: they felled. The Just Department under Lorella Lynch had gotten
Speaker 1: a little too close to the political side, and so
Speaker 1: that was sort of his view with how to bring
Speaker 1: it back in line. Um, and so when the President
Speaker 1: got was pushing whether it was I'm sure privately as
Speaker 1: well else, but also you know, publicly to have details
Speaker 1: about this Hunter Biden probe disclosed that would run against
Speaker 1: everything William Barr had stood for. Especially this was what
Speaker 1: had led to all the criticism of James Comey, who
Speaker 1: actually served as part of the basis for uh, the
Speaker 1: former Deputy Attorney General to to read that memo ordering
Speaker 1: Comy fired over having gone public about the details the
Speaker 1: Clinton investigation in twenty sixteen, making public overt moves on
Speaker 1: that investigation in the final days of the election, which
Speaker 1: a lot of political data analysts said helped to push
Speaker 1: Trump over the top in those final days with independence
Speaker 1: and sort of the persuadable moderate Republicans, and so to
Speaker 1: have gone public with the Hunter Biden details, whether it
Speaker 1: was in twenty nineteen, long before the election itself and
Speaker 1: still be to disclose the existence of an investigation, which
Speaker 1: is something d o J doesn't do, or to have
Speaker 1: specifically done it in the final weeks of the election
Speaker 1: in hihilation of those very rules that had cost James
Speaker 1: Comey's job, would have just defied everything William Barrs took
Speaker 1: for it, and so I'm sure that was part of
Speaker 1: what pushed him again over the edge, saying this is
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to restore. Whether or not there was
Speaker 1: anything to restore or not, it's a separate discussion, but
Speaker 1: this is what he was trying to stand for with
Speaker 1: the Department, and the president's um public remarks were undermining that.
Speaker 1: One also questions why there's been a two year investigation
Speaker 1: into Hunter Biden over taxes. That seems pretty political. So
Speaker 1: looking at the reporting, and obviously we only know about
Speaker 1: what's come out with reporting, it sounds like the original
Speaker 1: scope of the investigation was broader than the taxes. Sounds
Speaker 1: like there was a money laundering aspect of potential foreign lobbying,
Speaker 1: an all manner of issues tied to hunter Biden's somewhat
Speaker 1: questionable private industry activities over the last few years, particularly
Speaker 1: in Ukraine. And of course you know that also came
Speaker 1: up in the context of the impeachment Daga and the
Speaker 1: President trying to extore at the Ukrainian president to launch
Speaker 1: a public investigation. So it's certainly not surprising that the
Speaker 1: Just Department would have had an original, rap large, wide
Speaker 1: ranging inquiry into this. But from the sounds of it,
Speaker 1: all that's left, all that they think is worthy of
Speaker 1: continued investigation is whether or not there is a tax
Speaker 1: matter here, and certainly committing a criminal tax felony is
Speaker 1: a serious issue, and if that is what hunter Biden did,
Speaker 1: then he should face all manner of criminal liability and
Speaker 1: scrutiny for that, and he'll have his Dame Court. But
Speaker 1: the original concept and everything that the Trump team was
Speaker 1: trying to push out on Hunter Biden, that this was
Speaker 1: all tied to money for Joe Biden, in the end,
Speaker 1: none of that seems to be playing out in this
Speaker 1: do J Probs brad One of the greatest unrestrained powers
Speaker 1: that Trump has left now is the pardon power and
Speaker 1: their speculation that there's a January surprise being planned and
Speaker 1: that that was a reason why bar might have wanted
Speaker 1: to get out as well. But after pardoning former National
Speaker 1: Security advisor Michael Flynn and commuting the sand tins of
Speaker 1: Roger Stone, aren't we sort of expecting Trump to pardon
Speaker 1: anyone associated with the Muller investigation. I think it'll even
Speaker 1: go further than that. But yeah, I think we can
Speaker 1: expect as we get into the final days of the
Speaker 1: Trump administration, when when you go past January six and
Speaker 1: then he last stand that his allies and Congress will
Speaker 1: make to try to stop um the certification of Joe
Speaker 1: Biden as the president elect. When he knows that he's
Speaker 1: on his final days, he'll use anything and everything he
Speaker 1: wants from that power to just laugh out at What
Speaker 1: he needs is the deep state and all the people
Speaker 1: who oppose them. So not only is it going to
Speaker 1: be you know, the Rudy Giuliani's and its family and
Speaker 1: people like that, kind of preemptive pardons of any number
Speaker 1: of federal probes that could be going on into them,
Speaker 1: but I would look to see a pardon of Edward
Speaker 1: Snowden that's been bandied about a lot, potentially Julian Assange,
Speaker 1: who we know was involved in leaking all the kinds
Speaker 1: of emails and documents in the election, and there's an
Speaker 1: ongoing to fight over that. I would look for a
Speaker 1: ray change of highly controversial parts that Donald Trump can
Speaker 1: put up as fighting back against the evil deep State
Speaker 1: and just having fun trolling everyone who opposed him, because
Speaker 1: that's Donald Trump at the end. Well, Bar has been
Speaker 1: here before. He recommended pardons for Iran contra figures at
Speaker 1: the end of George H. W. Bush's term that ended
Speaker 1: the investigation and so sort of insulated Bush. So I'm
Speaker 1: wondering whether the pardon that would really cause so much
Speaker 1: controversy that bar might want to get out from under
Speaker 1: it before it happens, is a self pardon that Trump
Speaker 1: might pardon himself. That's certainly possible that there's paperwork ordy
Speaker 1: been drafted and research, no doubt by the White House
Speaker 1: Council's Office of whether or not a self pardon would
Speaker 1: even work, whether it would hold up in court. I
Speaker 1: would be shocked if the President doesn't do it. Anyways,
Speaker 1: even if it ultimately doesn't hold up. Just to have
Speaker 1: exercised the power anyway, just to try and shields himself
Speaker 1: from it, I'm sure that would, uh to an extent,
Speaker 1: would even upset someone like William Barr. My assumption is
Speaker 1: that that if there were incoming pardons that were truly
Speaker 1: upsetting William Barr, it's more along the lines of a
Speaker 1: potential one for Edward Snowdon and Rudy Giuliani. I think
Speaker 1: those would truly have offended William Barr's particular sensibilities. Why
Speaker 1: pardon Edward Snowdon? So the snowdon't matter because it's partially
Speaker 1: because it ties into the President's The same for the
Speaker 1: intelligence community, in his view that there's overclassification, which of
Speaker 1: course he never actually takes steps to override, which he
Speaker 1: alone can do. He always backs down when it gets
Speaker 1: in the court um, and his view that the intelligent
Speaker 1: community was always working against him. In Edward Snowdon, with
Speaker 1: his disclosures back in, had kind of taken the intelligent
Speaker 1: community up of the woodshed a bit um, exposing some
Speaker 1: of the grand jewels of the n S A s
Speaker 1: UM surveillance operations and capabilities, and so there would be again,
Speaker 1: just the ability to stick it to people he felt
Speaker 1: never really on his side. By pardoning Edwards Snowden, it
Speaker 1: would allow him to just jam one more, you know,
Speaker 1: uh uh, stake into the backs of the intelligence community
Speaker 1: on his way out. And I think for him he'd
Speaker 1: view that as great TV because then he could try
Speaker 1: to coordinate with Vladimir Putin as a private citizen and
Speaker 1: helped bring Edwards Snowden back in some you know, arrival
Speaker 1: ceremony live for TV. Bar's top deputy, Jeffrey Rosen, the
Speaker 1: Deputy Attorney General, will step into the Justice Department's top
Speaker 1: job in an acting role. Even though Rosen is not
Speaker 1: yet the acting Attorney General, President Trump is already talking
Speaker 1: about replacing him right According to the Associated Press, Trump
Speaker 1: is considering whether to replace Rosen if he doesn't appoint
Speaker 1: a special counsel and has even asked his lawyers whether
Speaker 1: he has the power to appoint a special counsel himself.
Speaker 1: But the Hunter Biden investigation apparently involves several U S
Speaker 1: attorneys offices and FBI field offices, so it's not so easy,
Speaker 1: because I mean, there's limits to what he's going to
Speaker 1: be able to implement. At this late stage and with
Speaker 1: so little time left, the president can in theory do
Speaker 1: lots of things. He can order investigations, but he can't
Speaker 1: prosecute criminal cases. If that's what he really wants the
Speaker 1: OJ to do, he could pressure d o J to
Speaker 1: appoint a special counsel to look in the Hunter Biden,
Speaker 1: but in the end, unless he's going to literally draft
Speaker 1: up the order himself, there's little he can do to
Speaker 1: truly make these individuals do it. A lot of the
Speaker 1: ones who have the ultimate authority right now are political
Speaker 1: people who are expecting that they're out the door anyways
Speaker 1: in a few weeks. Uh, And in the end, they
Speaker 1: aren't going to feel much pressure in much at this
Speaker 1: point because they're already looking for where they're going to
Speaker 1: be come the beginning of February, and they're less concerned
Speaker 1: about trying to create some controversial order for a special
Speaker 1: council into the Hunter Biden. He finally, Bar has named
Speaker 1: Durham to serve as special counsel in the continuing FBI
Speaker 1: Russia probe. People have cited that as you know, a
Speaker 1: parting gift from Bar to Trump, But hasn't that probe
Speaker 1: really gone as far as it can Is it going anywhere? Yeah? So,
Speaker 1: I mean when I saw that, I viewed it strictly
Speaker 1: as a projection. Almost this is this is very much
Speaker 1: what Donald Trump and Bill bar do. Some extent they
Speaker 1: assume everybody else will act the way they would in
Speaker 1: terms of how they would assert power. Donald Trump assumes
Speaker 1: everybody else cheats on their taxes and committee power because
Speaker 1: he knows that's what he does. Um. And so with
Speaker 1: William Barr, there's a concern that Joe Biden would come
Speaker 1: in and just squash the investigation into Hunter Biden. There's
Speaker 1: no proof or evidence a reason to believe Joe Biden
Speaker 1: will do any of those things. And I would certainly
Speaker 1: oppose it if he did, and I'm sure others would too.
Speaker 1: But by creating the Special Council Provision, he makes it
Speaker 1: the Oilian farm made it a little more difficult, a
Speaker 1: little more politically risky, for Joe Bien to try to
Speaker 1: take any steps to do so. And as far as
Speaker 1: it concern, that's fine. If there's a crime there, prosecute
Speaker 1: the crime. You want to write the report, write the report.
Speaker 1: But I don't see this going anywhere. That the President,
Speaker 1: a lot of his allies view this as as you know,
Speaker 1: some house and snaring people like Joe Biden. There's just
Speaker 1: no there there. Um. It might look bad, it might
Speaker 1: be politically damaging, but I don't see a crime outside
Speaker 1: of whatever Hunter Biden may have done with his taxes.
Speaker 1: Thanks Brad. That's Bradley Moss Apartment Mark Zad and that's
Speaker 1: it for the edition of The Bloomberg Law Show. Remember
Speaker 1: you can always get the latest legal news on our
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Lawn podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
Speaker 1: and at www dot Bloomberg dot com slash podcast Slash Law.
Speaker 1: I'm June Grosso. Thanks so much for listening. Please tune
Speaker 1: into The Bloomberg Law Show every week at ten pm
Speaker 1: Eastern right here on Bloomberg Radio.