The Democratic chairmen of two House committees demanded Monday that the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility probe Attorney General William P. Barr’s comments on the firing of Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community inspector general.
Mr. Barr last week said President Trump did the right thing firing Mr. Atkinson, who disclosed the whistleblower complaint about the Ukraine phone call that ignited impeachment hearings.
Mr. Barr added a Justice Department legal opinion had ordered Mr. Atkinson to send the report to the executive branch before Congress.
“He is obliged to follow the interpretation of the Department of Justice and he ignored it,” Mr. Barr said in an interview with Fox News.
Reps. Adam B. Schiff of California and Jerrold Nadler of New York said the comments “blatantly mischaracterized” both Mr. Atkinson’s actions and the Justice Department’s legal guidance.
Mr. Schiff is chairman of the House intelligence committee, while Mr. Nadler leads the House Judiciary Committee.
“In maligning Mr. Atkinson and falsely portraying him as insubordinate, Mr. Barr misrepresented DOJ’s legal opinion concerning the whistleblower complaint,” they wrote. “Mr. Barr’s remarks also ignored the impropriety of DOJ’s coordination with the White House to prevent a whistleblower complaint concerning presidential misconduct from reaching Congress.”
A Justice Department spokesperson confirmed receipt of the letter, but declined to comment.
The Justice Department and Mr. Atkinson disagreed about how to advance the whistleblower complaint, which alleged wrongdoing regarding Mr. Trump’s interaction with his Ukrainian counterpart. In particular, the complaint raised questions about Mr. Trump pressing Ukraine’s president to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden.
Mr. Atkinson pushed for the complaint to be distributed to Congressional intelligence committees because it was an “urgent” matter, but Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel saw it as an executive branch issue and not urgent.
At the time then-acting director of national intelligence (DNI) Joseph Maguire consulted with the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) which concluded the matter was not urgent.
The OLC held the matter was not urgent because it did not involve malfeasance involving the “funding, administration or operation of an intelligence committee matter,” which falls under the inspector general’s purview.
Instead, the Justice Department concluded the matter was an allegation of criminal conduct by the president and should be handled within the Executive Branch as a criminal referral. The department’s ruling stopped Mr. Atkinson from turning over the complaint to Congress, but he did make lawmakers aware of its existence. A senior justice department official told The Washington Times that Mr. Barr’s remarks were “entirely accurate,” adding Mr. Atkinson had “ignored” the department’s opinion.
The official said if Mr. Atkinson truly respected the department’s legal role, he would have followed OLC’s opinion.
“Instead, the IG insisted on informing the committees that he had received a complaint and personally disagreed with the DNI’s conclusion that it did not present an urgent concern,” the official said.
The two Democrats say Mr. Barr’s remarks are part of a “disturbing pattern” of misrepresenting facts, accusing the attorney general of distorting ex-special counsel Robert Mueller’s conclusions.
“Public confidence in our system of justice depends on the integrity, fairness and impartiality of DOJ’s leadership,” they wrote. “It is, therefore, imperative that the Attorney General be held to the same high standard expected of all department personnel, particularly in matters involving the president’s own interests.”
Monday’s letter is the second push from Democratic lawmakers for a review of the attorney general’s comments. Sens. Dianne Fienstein of California and Mark Warner of Virginia — respectively, the ranking Democrats on that chamber’s judiciary and intelligence panels— last week sent a similar letter to the Office of Professional Responsibility.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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