Attorney General William Barr on Thursday said he was doing his own bidding, and not President Donald Trump’s, in moving to dismiss charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in 2017.
“I made clear during my confirmation hearing that I was going to look into what happened in 2016 and '17. I made that crystal clear,” Barr said Thursday during an appearance on CBS News when Catherine Herridge asked whether he was influenced by Trump or his tweets.
“I was very concerned about what happened. I was going to get to the bottom of it. And that included the treatment of General Flynn.”
The Department of Justice on Thursday said it was dropping the criminal case against Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, a stunning reversal for one of the signature cases brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller as part of his inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 elections.
In court documents, the DOJ said it was dropping the case “after a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information.” The documents were obtained by The Associated Press.
Barr, on CBS, said investigators bypassed the DOJ and “lay a perjury trap for General Flynn.”
“They didn't warn him, the way we usually would be required by the Department. They bypassed the Justice Department,” he added. “They bypassed the protocols at the White House and so forth. These were things that persuaded me that there was not a legitimate counterintelligence investigation going on.”