The New York City Bar Association sent a letter to Congressional leaders asking them to open an investigation into Attorney General William Barr’s conduct.
The letter, written by the president of the association Roger Maldonado, states the Barr has engaged in behavior that has “threatens public confidence in the fair and impartial administration of justice.”
“We write on behalf of the New York City Bar Association (the ‘City Bar’) to urge Congress to commence formal inquiries into a pattern of conduct by Attorney General William P. Barr that threatens public confidence in the fair and impartial administration of justice.”
Maldonado lays out several comments and actions made by Barr, within the past few months, that he claims positions the office of the attorney general — and the Justice Department — as “political partisans willing to use the levers of government to empower certain groups over others.”
Specifically, he mentions Barr’s disagreement with DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s findings in his investigation into how the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted its 2016 probe of then-candidate Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
And Maldonado notes that Barr was accused of mischaracterizing the findings of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation before they were released to the public. The letter reads:
“These comments follow and are reminiscent of Mr. Barr’s earlier mischaracterizations of the Mueller Report, prior to his release of a redacted version of it, in which Mr. Barr claimed the special counsel had found insufficient evidence of any obstruction of justice by President Trump.”
“Although we do not in this letter take any position on whether or not Mr. Barr has violated any Rules of Professional Conduct, at least one leading legal ethics authority has suggested that government lawyers have special obligations to be factually accurate in their public statements,” Maldonado said.
“Mr. Barr’s conduct appears to run afoul of the ‘very special obligations’ that he himself professed to recognize during his 1991 and 2019 Senate confirmation hearings.”
Finally, he accuses Barr of acting “in a manner communicating an impression that he views himself as serving as the Attorney General not for the entire nation, but more narrowly for certain segments of society.”
Barr has been subjected to harsh criticism over his statements and actions before. In December, former Attorney General Eric Holder accused Barr of acting as like “unscrupulous criminal defense lawyer [rather] than a U.S. attorney general,” as IJR has previously reported.
