WASHINGTON – Prosecutors for the Career Justice Department this week pushed back against a memo from Attorney General William P. Barr opening the door to a politically charged election fraud investigation on threats of election fraud.
The protests were the latest reprimand from Mr Barr by his own staff, who in recent months have begun to criticize his leadership, both privately and publicly. They argued that Mr Barr worked to advance President Trump’s interests by using the department’s power to protect his allies and attack his enemies.
On Friday, 16 federal prosecutors across the country hired to monitor elections for signs of fraud wrote to Mr Barr that they had found no evidence of “material allegations of polling and voting irregularities.” They also asked him to revoke the memo, saying it had pushed the department into partisan politics and was unnecessary because no one found legitimate suspicions of mass voter fraud.
The memo “is not based on fact,” wrote the monitors.
The memo was released on Monday when the president tried to falsely allege widespread electoral fraud. It allows prosecutors to investigate “material fraud allegations” before confirming the results of the presidential race, ignoring long-standing guidelines from the department designed to prevent law enforcement investigations from affecting the outcome of an election.
“It was developed and announced without consulting impartial professionals locally and in the department,” the prosecutors wrote of the memo. “The time of publication of the memorandum brings the prosecutors into partisan politics.” The Washington Post reported earlier on her letter.
On Thursday, a top attorney at the U.S. law firm in Washington said in an email to Mr. Barr through Richard P. Donoghue, an officer in the assistant attorney general, that the memo should be overturned because it violated longstanding practice, according to Information from two people who are aware of the email.
Prosecutor JP Cooney also said the fact that Richard Pilger, a long-time employee of the department overseeing electoral fraud crimes, decided to step down over the memo was deeply worrying.
In response, Mr. Donoghue told Mr. Cooney that he would forward his complaint but that he would notice if it leaked to reporters. Given that the email was created out of concern for integrity, Mr Donoghue said in his response that he would assure officials “that I have a high level of confidence that it will not be inappropriately relayed to the media” .
A department spokeswoman declined to comment on Mr. Cooney’s message. When asked about the prosecutor’s letter to Mr. Barr, she said his memo instructed prosecutors “to exercise reasonable caution and maintain the department’s absolute commitment to fairness, neutrality and non-partisanship”.
Others in the department pointed out that Mr Barr’s memo was carefully worded and contained reservations that made it unlikely that a prosecutor could reach the threshold to open a case and investigate.
“Specific, speculative, fanciful, or far-fetched allegations should not be used as a basis for opening a federal investigation,” Barr wrote in his memo. “Nothing here should be taken as an indication that the department has concluded that voting irregularities affected the outcome of an election.”
Department attorneys often engage in heated debates over policy, investigations, and law enforcement, but they rarely express their criticisms in writing and then send them to top officials.
But Mr Barr’s memo has caused quite a stir among prosecutors working on election fraud, in large part because Mr Trump himself made false claims of widespread election fraud. Even the specter of such an investigation into the presidential race votes could undermine the integrity of the elections.
Mr. Pilger, the district attorney overseeing the election fraud at the Department’s headquarters in Washington, resigned from his oversight role in protest a few hours after it was issued. and other attorneys affected by the memo began developing plans on how to roll back Mr. Barr’s approval and what to do if a U.S. attorney announces an election-related investigation, according to three people who are aware of these discussions.
Even as the department’s officials and prosecutors argued over the memo, Mr Trump’s legal cases related to Friday’s election began to unravel. A Michigan state judge denied an attempt by Republicans to stop the confirmation of the vote in Wayne County, which includes Detroit, pending an examination. And Mr. Trump’s lawyers withdrew election-related lawsuits in Pennsylvania and Arizona.
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