Donald Trump AG’s ‘Unusual’ Behavior Detailed by Muller Investigator

A lawyer who helped prosecute key Trump allies says that Trump’s attorney general intervened “in very significant ways” while the cases were continuing.
Andrew Goldstein said that Bill Barr’s intervention was “unusual” for an attorney general.
Speaking to former federal prosecutor, Preet Bharara, on the Stay Tuned With Preet podcast, Goldstein said that Barr placed himself into the prosecution of former national security adviser Michael Flynn and the sentencing of Trump ally, Roger Stone.
Flynn and Stone were prosecuted for withholding information about Trump’s alleged links to the Russian government.
“He inserted himself into the Michael Flynn prosecution, into the sentencing of Roger Stone in ways that I think many other attorneys general would’ve stayed away from and would’ve allowed line prosecutors and career prosecutors to do their jobs,” Goldstein said.
“I can’t say, because we don’t know what was he really thinking, and he has articulated publicly reasons for why he stepped in. But in case after case involving aspects of our work, he inserted himself in very significant ways that I think are unusual for an attorney general to do,” Goldstein added.
Newsweek sought email comment from Bill Barr, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone and the Trump campaign on Friday.
Goldstein appeared on the podcast with attorney, Aaron Zebley. Both of them worked on the Mueller investigation into alleged links between Trump and the Russian government and have published a new book: Interference: The Inside Story of Trump, Russia, and the Mueller Investigation.
The report from special counsel Robert Mueller, who was appointed in May 2017 by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to investigate Russian election interference and possible coordination with the Trump campaign, concluded: “Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
Trump pardoned Flynn on November 19, 2020 to prevent the continued prosecution of his case.
Flynn, a retired lieutenant general who worked on Trump’s transition team after his 2016 election victory, had previously pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about a December 2016 conversation with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the agency’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Flynn’s sentencing was delayed multiple times before he attempted to overturn his conviction and withdraw his guilty plea in January, 2020. The Justice Department announced they were dropping charges against him in May, 2020, while Barr was attorney general.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan did not immediately accept the government’s decision and ordered further hearings.
A jury convicted Stone of seven felonies, including lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional investigation. He was jailed for 40 months and Trump commuted his sentence in July, 2020, before Stone began serving his prison time.
Zebley told Bharara that he was surprised by the level of hate they received while investigating Trump’s alleged connections to Trump.
“Frankly, I was ultimately quite surprised at the level of incoming that we took. At the beginning of the investigation, the way I thought about it was, we are examining a foreign adversary’s interference in an election and it was the Russians,” he said.
“How could not the whole country be at our back for that kind of investigation? So I actually came into the investigation with a little bit of that perspective. Of course, the country wants to get to the bottom of this. But over time, that was not necessarily always the way that we were greeted.”