William Barr Has ‘No Plans To Resign’ DOJ Says In Unusual Late-Night Statement


Attorney General William Barr has been under intense scrutiny after stepping in to ease the sentence against long-time Donald Trump ally Roger Stone. On top of that, Barr has expressed frustration as Trump continues to tweet about the job that he is doing at the Department of Justice, saying that the president is making his job “impossible.”

The Washington Post reports that things have gotten so bad that sources close to Barr say that he is thinking about quitting the job altogether. But in a late-night tweet, a spokesperson for Barr said that the report was just “beltway rumors” and Barr had no plans to leave.

Typically, public statements about government business are released during the day, but Kerri Kupec, the director of communications and public affairs at the Department of Justice, sent out a tweet at 10:30 Washington, D.C. time.

“Addressing Beltway rumors: The Attorney General has no plans to resign,” she said.

The situation began when Trump complained on Twitter about Stone’s recommended sentence, calling it unfair. Shortly after Barr stepped in and had the sentence reduced, though he says that he made the decision before the president tweeted about the situation. Shortly after the move, Trump tweeted again, cheering Barr’s decision to reduce the sentence.

The situation caused the four prosecutors to resign from the case in protest and thousands of Justice Department officials signed onto a letter criticizing the decision and calling for Barr to resign. They argue that he has violated the oath that he took when he stepped into the role of Attorney General and that the lines have been blurred between the Oval Office and the DOJ.

“People close to Barr say he is unlikely to be moved by the letter from the former Justice Department employees, which bears the signatures of many who have long been vocal opponents of his. But Barr, the people said, is deeply concerned about morale inside the department, and that is in part why he chastised the president publicly to ABC News,” the Post reports.

Barr later said that Trump’s tweeting made his job difficult and said that he’d asked the president to stop tweeting. Even still, yesterday, Trump said that he was essentially the head of the law enforcement in the United States, though this role is typically ascribed to the Attorney General. As The Inquisitr previously reported, Trump said that he had the right to step in on a DOJ case if he wanted, further complicating Barr’s claims that he at the White House do not collaborate on decisions.

Trump also went on a tweet rant about the need to give Stone a new trial, despite Barr’s requests that he not tweet about DOJ issues. Even still, as the Post reports, Barr was still in his role as head of the department as of Wednesday evening.

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