Feinstein, Warner call for DOJ inspector general review of Barr comments related to Trump firing of ICIG

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Barr says Trump was right in removing Atkinson

Attorney General William Barr sits down with Laura Ingraham on 'The Ingraham Angle' Thursday April 9 at 10 p.m.

Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Mark Warner on Friday called on the Justice Department inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility to review Attorney General Bill Barr’s comments in the wake of President Trump firing the intelligence community watchdog.

Feinstein, D-Calif., and Warner, D-Va., penned a letter to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz and acting director and chief counsel of the Office of Professional Responsibility, Jeffrey Ragsdale, on Friday to “express concern about statements made” by Barr regarding the firing of ICIG Michael Atkinson.

The senators noted that recent comments made by Barr raise “broader questions” about whether the attorney general is following DOJ policies that “demand candor and impartiality.”

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“It is critical that the American people have confidence in the work of the Justice Department, which requires that all of its employees—and most importantly, the Attorney General—be truthful and impartial,” the senators wrote. “Accordingly, we request that you investigate whether Attorney General Barr’s statements in matters involving the interests of the President violate applicable Justice Department policies and rules of professional conduct.”

The senators cited a comment made by Barr during a Fox News interview earlier this month, when he said Atkinson had “ignored” guidance from the Justice Department that “he is obliged to follow,” and that the president “did the right thing” by firing him.

In the interview earlier this month, Barr said that "from the vantage point of the Department of Justice, [Atkinson] had interpreted his statute, which is a fairly narrow statute, that gave him jurisdiction over wrongdoing by intelligence people and tried to turn it into a commission to explore anything in the government and immediately reported to Congress without letting the Executive Branch look at it and determine whether there was any problem."

BARR SAYS TRUMP WAS RIGHT TO FIRE ATKINSON

“This is not the only time that the Attorney General has misstated the facts in defense of the President. In the same interview where he falsely portrayed ICIG Atkinson as insubordinate, Attorney General Barr also asserted that the FBI opened its 2016 investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia ‘without any basis,’” they wrote. “To the contrary, the Department’s Office of Inspector General concluded that the FBI had a legitimate legal and factual basis to investigate the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.”

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Feinstein and Warner also claimed that Barr has “repeatedly mischaracterized key aspects of Special Counsel Mueller’s findings in letters to Congress and public statements.”

But the Justice Department on Friday responded, arguing Barr's remarks were entirely accurate.

The Justice Department said that the dispute between Atkinson and the acting director of national intelligence was based on his demand that the whistleblower complaint, which prompted the president's impeachment inquiry, be sent to Congress before it was sent to the Criminal Division of the Justice Department for review.

The seven-day period, according to the Justice Department, gave the DNI the time to review whether the allegations presented an "urgent concern," but they said it was not intended or provided the time to review the merits. The Justice Department maintained that Barr correctly described Atkinson as insisting that the complaint go immediately to Congress before “the executive branch [could] look at it and determine whether there was any problem.”

The Justice Department went on to state that Atkinson also ignored the opinion issued by the Office of Legal Counsel by notifying the intelligence committees that he personally disagreed with the DNI's conclusion that the allegations against the president did not meet the statutory definition of an "urgent concern." The Justice Department said that Atkinson insisted on informing the intelligence committees that he received the complaint.

The letter to Horowitz comes after the president fired Atkinson last month. Atkinson played a key role in notifying Congress about the whistleblower complaint concerning Trump's communications with Ukraine that ultimately led to his impeachment earlier this year.

Meanwhile, the House Intelligence Committee is reviewing the circumstances of Atkinson’s dismissal, “including whether his termination was intended to curb any ongoing investigations or reviews being undertaken by his office,” committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said earlier this month.

"Trump’s dead of night decision to fire ICIG Michael Atkinson is another blatant attempt to gut the independence of the Intelligence Community and retaliate against those who dare to expose presidential wrongdoing," he tweeted. "It puts our country and national security at even greater risk."