Reported today on The New York Times For the full article visit:
Fearful of Trump's Attacks, Justice Dept. Lawyers Worry Barr Will Leave Them ExposedAfter a week of tumult, some career prosecutors expressed concerns about political interference and the attorney general's response to the president weighing in on the prosecution of an associate.WASHINGTON - In an email a few days ago to the 270 lawyers he oversees, Nicola T. Hanna, the United States attorney in Los Angeles, offered a message of reassurance: I am proud of the work you do, he wrote.Other U.S. attorneys in the Justice Department's far-flung 93 field offices relayed similar messages of encouragement after President Trump's efforts to influence a politically fraught case provoked the kind of consternation the department has rarely seen since the Watergate era. "All I have to say," another United States attorney wrote to his staff, "is keep doing the right things for the right reasons."But the fact that the department's 10,000-odd lawyers needed reassurances seemed like cause for worry all by itself.In more than three dozen interviews in recent days, lawyers across the federal government's legal establishment wondered aloud whether Mr. Trump was undermining the Justice Department's treasured reputation for upholding the law without favor or political bias - and whether Attorney General William P. Barr was able or willing to protect it.Mr. Trump elicited those fears by denouncing federal prosecutors who had recommended a prison sentence of up to nine years for his longtime friend and political adviser Roger J. Stone Jr. Mr. Barr fanned them by scrapping the recommendation in favor of a far more lenient one, leading the prosecutors to quit the case in protest.Mr. Barr then took to national television to complain that Mr. Trump's angry tweets were undermining him and his depa
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