Thread by @weareoversight

NEW LAWSUIT: We’re suing the Department of Justice for Attorney General Barr’s calendars, call logs, visitor logs, and texts.

Barr has continually abetted the president’s attempts to politicize DOJ. Here are some examples:

americanoversight.org/american-overs…

Barr defended the use of force on peaceful protesters last week. Wednesday, more than 1,250 former DOJ workers called on DOJ’s Inspector General to investigate Barr’s role in forcefully clearing peaceful protestors from Lafayette Square on June 1.

washingtonpost.com/national-secur…

DOJ moved to drop charges against Michael Flynn — after he pleaded guilty and was convicted. Last month, thousands of former DOJ officials signed an open letter criticizing Barr’s role in dismissing the charges.

nbcnews.com/politics/justi…

In February, more than 1,100 former officials called on Barr to resign over the decision to reverse the sentencing recommendations for Trump ally Roger Stone.

npr.org/2020/02/16/806…

Also in February, Barr acknowledged he created a separate “intake process” for handling information on Joe Biden’s family gathered by Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.

washingtonpost.com/national-secur…

There’s more. We obtained text message records of a memo Barr sent to DOJ in 2018 — while still a private citizen — outlining his criticism of the Russia investigation and that memo was sent to then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

americanoversight.org/document/doj-r…

That memo prompted calls for Barr to recuse himself from overseeing Mueller’s work, which he refused to do. Barr then launched an investigation into the origins of the Mueller probe.

politico.com/story/2019/03/…

Records we obtained revealed that in spring 2019 — immediately after Mueller completed his report — Barr had multiple meetings and calls with U.S. Attorney John Durham, the federal prosecutor he had appointed to examine the Russia investigation.

americanoversight.org/documents-we-o…

"[T]he frequency of their face-to-face meetings during this critical time — while Mueller’s office wrapped up its work — raised questions for several former [DOJ] lawyers who learned of Barr’s meetings this week,” wrote CNN in its report on the docs.
cnn.com/2020/05/20/pol…

These are just some of the examples of how Barr has abetted the president’s attempts to politicize the Department of Justice. The public deserves to know more about Barr’s actions, and in April of this year we filed Freedom of Information Act requests with DOJ for:

-Barr’s calendars: americanoversight.org/document/foia-…

-Visitor Logs: americanoversight.org/document/foia-…

-and text messages: americanoversight.org/document/foia-…

DOJ’s failure to respond to these requests prompted Thursday’s lawsuit. These records could shed light on how Barr has run DOJ. Calendars and visitor logs could provide further valuable information on whom Barr has been meeting with.

We will continue to investigate Barr’s concerning leadership at the Justice Department. The full complaint is available here.

americanoversight.org/document/compl…